Can Sega-16 Beat Every Genesis Game in 2013? - The Official Thread!

Beat the first two scenarios (of four) in Warrior of Rome. What an utterly miserable game it is, light-years inferior to its successor & with no sense of logic or urgency to the gameplay.

EDIT: Third scenario beaten. Happily, it only took about 45 minutes, vs. last year when it took me over 6 hours (in multiple attempts). I'm hoping to get the last one done tomorrow.

Warrior of Rome, complete:



Right after taking down the barrier to Cleopatra's room.



Indeed, many people who bought this game would probably like to know the same thing.



...Julius, you need to get out more, meet some new queens.

Unfortunately Warrior of Rome is really pretty terrible. I think they wanted to make a good game, but several core ideas are just totally misguided, especially the perpetually-respawning armies that plague the first three scenarios. It pretends to be a RTS game, but combat is practically meaningless until the last scenario, there's no freedom of action, and the gameplay is just filled with counterintuitive "gotchas" that make no sense and make almost everything you do seem like an exercise in futility.

Anyway, here's how to beat it, especially in case we do this again next year (or in 2015) and someone else takes the game on:

Scenario 1: Destroy the ships, ideally with your engineering units, using the "TRAP" command. This one's not too tough, especially once your reinforcements arrive halfway through; just keep the enemy armies from wrecking all your bases. Combat is meaningless since all enemy units just respawn as soon as you've beaten them, because of the demands of the plot.

Scenario 2: Just get the flagship to its destination. It's painfully slow. The current will send your ships careening everywhere, so keep an eye on the radar. I don't know whether it's possible to sink an enemy ship, or how you're supposed to know when you've done enough damage if so. (I'm not even sure how to check your own ship's status.)

Scenario 3: The hardest one in the game. It's impossible to safeguard all the bridges, so just hold them as best you can. The bottom path to the goal is probably the best choice, but keep the enemy busy for a while by trying to break through on top too. Units 5-7 are now capable of firing missiles, so use them to weaken enemy units, who will sometimes stupidly hover at a distance -- but remember that defeated enemy units will respawn near the goal, which can lead to a brutal counterattack. Again, combat is meaningless, and the only thing that matters is keeping enemy units away from your engineering troops; they get very aggressive once you start breaking through the barrier to the final level goal. Here and in the final scenario, it's often good to issue movement commands while the game is paused, to avoid mishaps and delayed reactions.

Scenario 4: Very long, but relatively straightforward if you proceed with caution. All enemy troops are only deployed when you step on certain trigger squares, and in many cases, you can keep them from ever appearing if you just avoid those squares. Don't hesitate to use and abuse the game's built-in save/load functionality to figure out where the triggers are. It's an incredible hassle, since you're often feeding ten units through a one-square safe zone, and will frequently have to micromanage their paths so they don't hit a trigger square...but it beats dealing with endless combats. In at least one room, you can only bypass combat by taking down a bunch of barricades, but it's worth it.

In some cases combat is unavoidable, and tactics will depend on the situation. When enemy missile units are protected behind barricades, use your missile units (5-7) to take them out, one at a time. Your engineering units won't be able to remove barricades while under fire, so don't even try. In close combat, use your elite units (1-4) or, if necessary, engineering units (8-10); your missile units are weakest in melee. Set your retreat values very low (5% or less), or else your units are apt to retreat and get slaughtered right when they're about to win.

In the heavily barricaded hallway towards the end of the level, the enemy archers are too strong for even a single unit at full health, so rotate in a fresh unit to replace a wounded one. Don't cut it close -- your troops can become immobile very quickly. Triggers are everywhere, and enemy units can spawn underneath your own troops (only to be revealed when they move), so be careful. It may be worth triggering a battle just to give yourself more room to maneuver.

At the end of the final, very narrow corridor, when you emerge into the larger chamber, you'll automatically trigger a bunch of enemy units (I think 8 of them), and these are the strongest troops in the game. I found the best way to handle this was to send a single unit down, trigger the enemy to spawn, and then run away. If your army is massed to the "north", most of the enemy troops will wait, and they'll send a couple units after you at a time. You can soften them up with missile attacks as they come up the hall, and then use your elite units to finish them off. If things get messy or crowded and a unit looks unlikely to win a battle, be sure to retreat while you've still got enough health and send in a different unit before it's too late; it'll take forever for one of your respawned units to rejoin you, and you can only respawn a limited number of times in this final scenario.

Once you've cleared that he best way to get through the last room is to look for the trigger that spawns four enemies right in front of the barrier. (The layout of the room only forces you into that one combat.) Once you've defeated them, send an engineering unit down that path to the final barricade, and you're done.

Geeze I always wanted to play Warrior of Rome. Back when it was released I had no comprehension of what kind of game it was, in more recent years I was reminded of it and thought it was an early RTS type game like you suggest. Sorry to hear it is so abysmal to play, but thanks for setting the record straight!

Gaiares is coming along. It is in fact quite easy, once the levels are learned. Except that one slip-up will ruin a whole game.
I knew I used to 1-life clear it back in the day... the trick is to quit when you die and start at the first level again. Restarting in some areas with the default weapon is just asking to be annihilated.

Yeah, I wish I could say it had some kind of redeeming value -- like I said, you can tell that they meant well and had good intentions -- but the gameplay is just completely misguided on every level, and way too tedious for its own good despite being so (mercifully) short. I wrote a review of it here.

OTOH, Warrior of Rome II is actually quite good though it's extremely time-consuming. (I reviewed that one too.)

Nice to hear that Gaiares is going well!

I'm back! Don't forget about me!





Unchearted waters: new horizons is completed! I made my italian adventurer explore the World at very fast speed, focusing completely on the story quests and forgetting about the rest. Not a single pirate battle was fought, and only some fast trades Amsterdam-Timbuktu were completed. Besides, adventuring is what i like the most in this game.
Also, do you know that exists a MMORPG of Uncharted waters? Don't click if you care about your social life: http://uwo.netmarble.com/

And it's not over yet!



(translation from italian: "Excellent! You succesfully arrested the gang leader Carmen Sandiego and you sent her in jail forever." (below: push any button to continue))
Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego is completed as well. An easy educational game that becomes repetitive fast...well, at least it's easy if you know something about geography or if you are good at memorizing continuously repeated info.

While i wait for updates about Where in time (can i claim it or not?), i think it's time for a new sports game. There is a noble sport that nobody ever mentions...so i guess it's my duty to pick it up. I'm claiming World Class Leaderboard Golf!

^Bravissimo! Taking out two time-consuming games is very much appreciated. And how could we forget about the conqueror of Rocky & Bullwinkle?

Howeeeeeever, I'm embarrassed to admit that I neglected to PM Tripredacus about Where in Time. I'll do that right now, and mark you down for WCLG in the meantime. Either way, there's no reason you can't work on Where in Time, I just want to make sure you two don't collide!

EDIT: I also sent an overdue PM to Nightwolf about Might & Magic. BTW, I'm still working on RBI Baseball 4; the idea of starting over & throwing away the games I'd already played stuck in my craw, so I've just kept going and am partway through the historical teams.

Where in Time is difficult after you get past a certain level. I only got to the rank of 25 captures (not yet 35)... It helps if you keep track of which clues lead to which countries because they will come up again later. Each Time Detective rank has their own set of questions it seems, so when you advance you get 95% different questions than previous ranks. Also be careful because as you advance you get more "time" to do the capture, but in most cases if you make 1 incorrect jump to a time period, Sometimes you can recover if you have a warrant already at least. Making a 2nd wrong jump and you can pretty much forget about it.

Two Crude Dudes got bent, crushed, and submerged in liquids:



Striking the next-to-last blow against the final boss...



...and striking the self-armpit-sniffing victory pose that seems to be the Dudes' stock in trade.



Thanks, Dude(s)!

Beaten on the stock settings (Normal/3 Lives/3 Continues). At one point I tried to camp out and farm for points, as I thought I'd get an extra life at 150k points, but either I'm misremembering or did something wrong. I'm glad it didn't work out, though, since that would've felt a little cheesy -- and it got me to reread the manual, which clued me in to the right way to beat the tanks: lifting them up and throwing them.

I squandered a couple lives figuring that out and wasn't expecting to beat the game, but I had good luck against the fly boss (both times) and the final boss, and managed to scrape through on my last continue (and Dude).

@Discomusic: I heard back from Tripredacus, and Where in Time is yours! EDIT: ^Heh, I hadn't seen Tripredacus's post until just now.

Time to stop lurking & join the Sega-16 effort! Is the PAL version of 'Soldiers of Fortune' (named The Chaos Engine) allowed?

^Awesome, and yes! Unless someone knows differently, I believe nothing much was changed except the title screen and certain graphics. I'll mark it down for you.

Making slow, but steady progress on Bill Walsh College Football.

Grind Stormer's been ground down...



This is actually a pretty faithful port of the Toaplan original. The music, graphics, gameplay and such are all surprisingly close, and including both versions of the game was a nice bonus. Having to play through it all twice to get the ending is a pain in the ass though. That Tengen took a page from Capcom's "Ghosts" franchise to make the game last longer, isn't a plus for me.

^Niiiiice.

Gonna tackle Splatterhouse 2 tonight. Surprised nobody has claimed such a great game yet.

A fireworks show is all you get for beating this one.



Bill Walsh College Football is an excellent football game. Maybe the most authentic-feeling of all the football games I've played on the Genesis. Although it uses the same engine as Madden '94, the unique rules of college football make BWCF a distinctly different game. In terms of play calling, the game's AI is probably the best I've encountered. It does an impressive job of playing to a particular team's strengths. Teams with powerful running backs and dominate O-lines, like Michigan, will pound the ball in the running game. Teams with strong QB's and skilled WR's, like Miami, will throw the ball on nearly every down. And compared to the other football games I've played on the Genesis, BWCF is a defensive beast. I attempted more field goals and punted more in this game than in all of the other football games I've played for this endeavor, maybe combined.

I put Bill Walsh College Football right up there with the original Joe Montana Football and Madden '92 as one of my favorite football games on the Genesis.

Tips:

Set your audibles, especially on defense. Like with punting, I called more audibles in this game than in all the other football games I've played up to this point, combined. The game gives you very little time to mull over your defensive options. If you fail to get a play called, you'll need to be prepared to call an appropriate audible on the field.

On offense, the following set of plays will allow you to respond to 99% of the scenarios you'll face.

I-Form: Trap Option Left and Right*, HB Screen
Pro-Form: Cross Pass (Usually the B receiver), HB Toss&Pass (Usually the B receiver)
Shotgun: Deep Outs

*(Make sure you're running these plays from the I-formation. Don't run these plays from the Trap Option formation because strong defenses can crush these plays when run from the Trap Option formation.)

Yup, six plays, that's it. Of course, there are other effective plays that work well in appropriate situations, but you'll do well with the six plays above as the core of your playbook.

Defense is a bit trickier. It's probably best to play defense as "hands-off" as possible. Your best bet is to pick a defensive lineman and pressure the QB. Always trying to make the play yourself by frantically pressing B in order take control of the defensive player closest to the ball is counter productive because once you take control of a player, their AI is immediately shut off. Rapidly switching between defensive players will just result in a bunch of defensive players being immediately pulled out of the play.

If it's a pass play, wait until the ball has almost reached its target before taking control of the nearest defender, then rapidly press the C button to try and bat the ball down. If you take control of the defender too soon, you'll shut off his AI and he'll immediately fall out of his coverage responsibility.