Retro Matt

04/11/2024

BANJO-KAZOOIE: GRUNTYLVANIA
NINTENDO 64 (N64 HACK)

We earned our 56TH Retro Achievements mastery completing a really cool Banjo-Kazooie hack called Banjo-Kazooie: Gruntylvania as we finish up our Halloween streams.

This short but fun, single world adventure which takes place in a Halloween themed area called Gruntylvania, full of spooky areas to explore, guarded by those annoying laughing ghosts and spooky skeletons. I had a lot of fun exploring the many creative areas in this hack, from the swamp to the graveyard, the creepy castle, and especially the “underworld” which I called Virtual Boy Land, LOL!

Retro Achievements were also short, sweet, and to the point as well; collect all of everything, LOL! It was nice to just simply explore and find all of the Kurko Coins, Mumbo Tokens, Honeycombs, and Jinjos; no boss fights or damagesless challenges.

Overall, this is a great Halloween hack and a fun but simple set of achievements to complete.

04/11/2024

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EPISODE 210
BANJO-KAZOOIE: GRUNTYLVANIA

After ALL of the salt and headache of mastering Banjo-Kazooie’s final challenge in Retro Achievements, it’s time to chill and finish out our Halloween streams with one more adventure, Banjo-Kazooie: Gruntylvania! Let’s explore a new and spooky area to adventure in and earn another Retro Achievements mastery with a much less saltier challenge.

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04/11/2024

BANJO-KAZOOIE
NINTENDO 64

We earned our 55TH Retro Achievements mastery completing my favorite Nintendo 64 game, Banjo-Kazooie!

I’ve always enjoyed this game so much throughout the years. While it does continue to show the imperfections of the Nintendo 64, mainly fighting with the camera, the game still holds up to this day as a great 3D platformer with witty humor and fun level design that encourages exploration. While I did get lost from time to time, especially in the later areas while traversing Grunty’s Lair, it was a mostly enjoyable experience.

Retro Achievements for this consisted of the collectathon that Banjo-Kazooie is known for, but it was a little weird that we collected everything, even all of the Mumbo Tokens, but there was a requirement to not get the honey combs initially to increase health. The Mumbo Tokens were also very annoying to keep up with, while the 1-Up trophies were another extra thing we had to collect, those were much more manageable to keep up with though.

The biggest most infuriating part of this achievement set was the “no hit, bullsh*t” final boss challenge; it’s bad enough having to navigate the jank mechanics of flying and diving in phase 3 while also fighting the camera constantly through out the battle, but the entire experience gets ruined if the Jinjo Glitch occurs, which happened to me several times during the run, to the point that I got so annoyed with the whole thing, I just ended the stream. Another example of a “play perfect” achievement in a situation where the game can glitch and do whatever it wants and you’re forced to restart time and time again. I have to admit, this was definitely the toughest achievement I’ve earned up to this point and really exposed the flaws of the final boss and the mechanics utilized.

Overall, the game is definitely a Rare treasure though and I’m glad to have it added to my list of Retro Achievements masteries! While I hated that we didn’t earn the final boss achievement on stream, it really took a lot of effort and concentration on my end to pull off, it probably took about 8 hours of doing the fight over and over again to finally get the damageless win.

04/11/2024

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EPISODE 209
BANJO-KAZOOIE (PART 5)

All that stands in our way of another Retro Achievements mastery is the damageless final battle against Gruntilda, and man, that five phase fight is something else. While I do like the final boss battle overall, the phase three section of the fight is the worst for me, flying and bomb diving into Grunty is just so unpolished. Having spent a couple of hours trying to obtain this achievement last time, we are at least getting better and closer to mastering the game. Will today be the day?!

After several failed attempts last time, we did move on to other challenges such as 100% completion of each area, which all we needed to find was the honeycomb pieces for the health bonuses. Off stream I returned to Treasure Trove Cove to put in several cheat codes to unlock the Stop N’ Swop items hidden in the game and the Bottles Bonus Codes for Retro Achievements, it took FOREVER, but got that knocked out.

All that’s left is the Grunty challenge.

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03/11/2024

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EPISODE 208
BANJO-KAZOOIE (PART 4)

At last it’s time for the finale and the final showdown with Gruntilda! We’ve finally completed all ten areas of the game; collected all 100 Jiggies, found all 114 Mumbo Tokens (which was an absolute pain), collected all 100 music notes for each world, and completed various other challenges along the way, with the exception of collecting any of the honey combs as part of the challenge to not increase our health.

We did complete some of the more boring achievements off stream like the Bottles Puzzle game and some of the secret passwords for the sandcastle at Treasure Trove Cove. We also went back to locate two of the three hidden Cheato codes we were missing.

All that’s left is to take down Gruntilda without taking damage, and to clean up the remaining achievements for another Retro Achievements mastery!

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02/11/2024

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EPISODE 207
BANJO-KAZOOIE (PART 3)

Continuing our adventure we managed to complete Bubble Gloop Swamp, Freezeezy Peak, Gobi Valley, and Mad Monster Mansion; however, there is a fear that we may be missing a Mumbo Token in one of the later areas, hopefully I just miscounted and it’s fine, but I’m not sure, which lead to spending WAY too much time in Mad Monster Mansion, LOL!

Finally, we’re headed to Rusty Bucket Bay and Click Clock Wood, the final two areas of the game before the finale to continue the journey and our Retro Achievements challenge.

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02/11/2024

OCTOBER 2024
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Thank you all for your support during the month of October, we had a great time playing a few Halloween themed games, but not as many games as I had hoped as things were a bit hectic on my end.

We did find some pretty cool, spooky SMW Hacks to play and knocked out several for Retro Achievements too:

-Super Mario Starlite Remix
-Super Mario Bros. Lost Levels Enhanced
-Super Mario Bros. 5 Reborn
-Vanilla: Made To Order
-SMW: Il Maniero Spettrale
-Kirby's Halloween Adventure
-Panic In The Mushroom Kingdom

We also got to play Super Mario Party Jamboree with our pal, JPFire19 and I'm hoping we'll be streaming more of that!

As we head into November, we look forward to finishing up Banjo-Kazooie and a couple of Halloween themed games I found that I want to catch up on! We also have Mario & Luigi Brothership coming up after that, which I'm excited to play!

Guess what?! It's almost Christmas!!!

#2024

31/10/2024

Happy Halloween!!!
Hope y’all get lots of Candy Corn!!! 😂

31/10/2024

Is this the “Switch 2” or that alarm clock? 😂

But seriously, now this is an awesome idea! Can’t wait to check it out!!! 👀

30/10/2024

-STREAM UPDATE-
Unfortunately, I’ll have to cancel the planned stream for today, but we’ll continue Banjo-Kazooie on Saturday! Get ready for the incoming salt with the final boss, no damage challenge for Retro Achievements! 😂🥴

28/10/2024

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EPISODE 206
SUPER MARIO PARTY JAMBOREE (WITH JPFIRE19 AND TOBBACCA_PLAYS)

We haven’t had a Mario Party stream in a long while so it’s nice to be able to kick it with our pal JPFire19 and Tobbacca over on Twitch and take on the new Super Mario Party Jamboree for Nintendo Switch! I’ve had some time off-stream with this game and absolutely love it, so let’s see if we’ve practiced up enough to maintain our title of Superstar!

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28/10/2024

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EPISODE 205
BANJO-KAZOOIE (PART 2)

Yesterday we began our adventure with Banjo and Kazooie and we’re off to a great start having completed Mumbo’s Mountain, Treasure Trove Cove, and Clanker’s Cavern; and collected all of the music notes, Jiggies, Mumbo tokens, 1-Up trophies, and Jinjos so far. Since Retro Achievements has a challenge of completing the game with no health extension, we’re unable to collect any of the honey combs just yet, that’ll have to wait, so that’ll prevent 100% level completion for the time being.

But our adventure continues as we begin at our next destination, Bubble Gloop Swamp.

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27/10/2024

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EPISODE 204
BANJO-KAZOOIE

Banjo-Kazooie is my favorite Nintendo 64 game, but after this playthrough, will it remain that way? I’ve fully completed this game multiple times before, but this will be our first time taking on the game in Retro Achievements. As Halloween is quickly approaching, it’s time to see how this game still holds up and revisit the epic story of the bear, the bird, and the witch!

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26/10/2024

PANIC IN THE MUSHROOM KINGDOM
SNES (SMW HACK)

We (kinda) earned our 54TH Retro Achievements mastery playing through the extremely frustrating and very strange, Panic in the Mushroom Kingdom.

This time we got to play as Luigi during the adventure as we traveled across the Mushroom Kingdom to rescue Mario who was kidnapped by Bowser. While this seems to be a normal SMW Hack, we learned very quickly that the game is going to be quite trolly; enemy spam, excessive lag at times, precise jumps along with blind jumps, and questionable level design. While there were some interesting ideas and fun levels, the game would just have random difficulty spikes that just seemed over the top and it made things incredibly frustrating at times.

Retro Achievements for this consisted of collecting all of the Phanto Coins for each level (or most levels), complete all of the exits, find some hidden 3-Up Moons, and defeat all of the bosses. However, we’ve transitioned from damageless boss fights to having to complete the entire dungeon stages damageless. Most of the dungeons weren’t too bad to complete, but Wendy’s Tower and Bowser’s Castle were unnecessarily ridden with jank and were the worst.

Somehow, we managed to complete the challenge for Bowser’s Castle, the longest level in the game with five sections and enemy spam everywhere, but the challenge for Bowser’s Castle seemed to prompt anyway even though we took damage during the level. Well, I’m tired of playing glitchy games perfectly so, whatever, LOL!
..and I’m not going to talk about the weird secret level either, it was stupid, LOL!

Overall, this was an interesting SMW Hack and it is fine for a difficult, trolly challenge, but prepare for some jank and shenanigans.

26/10/2024

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EPISODE 203
PANIC IN THE MUSHROOM KINGDOM (PART 2)

Our journey through Panic in the Mushroom Kingdom has been interesting so far. We’ve traversed the jungle, desert, lagoon, mountains, and the snowfields while also discovering all of the exits, collecting the required Phanto Coins, and completing the Koopaling’s strongholds without taking damage.

Poor Luigi, the trolling has been real throughout this adventure along with some VERY tricky jumps and hidden traps! This journey will only get more intense, will we be able to complete the final couple of areas and their challenges to master this game?

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21/10/2024

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EPISODE 202
PANIC IN THE MUSHROOM KINGDOM

After the misadventures with Mario taking on Mushroom Kingdom: Under Crimson Skies, we move on to another SMW Hack to try out because we can’t get enough of them, LOL! Panic in the Mushroom Kingdom is exactly that, panic... and naughtiness too apparently. In this wacky adventure we journey with Luigi in an effort to save Mario who’s been kidnapped by Bowser, and perhaps we’ll earn some Retro Achievements along the way.

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20/10/2024

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EPISODE 201
MUSHROOM KINGDOM: UNDER CRIMSON SKIES

We return to the Mushroom Kingdom for another adventure when a strange comet appears and the inhabitants of the kingdom are transformed into stone! While not necessarily a Halloween themed adventure, Mushroom Kingdom: Under Crimson Skies looks to be an awesome adventure with a great story and plenty of creepy vibes! Let’s take on another awesome adventure with our pal Mario and earn some Retro Achievements along the way!

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19/10/2024

-STREAM UPDATES-
We’ll return tomorrow with another SMWHack and some Mario Party Jamboree, let me know if you want to join in on the Mario Partying! Speaking of that, we’ll also be joining Jpfire19 on Monday at 2PM EST on Twitch!

14/10/2024

KIRBY’S HALLOWEEN ADVENTURE
NES (KIRBY’S ADVENTURE HACK)

We earned our 53RD Retro Achievements mastery with our 200TH stream today playing through Kirby’s Halloween Adventure!

There aren’t many Kirby mods around so finding one that is fully complete is a real treat! The game rearranges several enemies and the design of the original Kirby’s Adventure to give it a fun Halloween theme. While it’s difficult for me to point out the differences, I’d say that much of the game is different from the original as for as level design goes. Unfortunately, the game does suffer a bit from some terrible lag and button press delays which I really got frustrated with in the Boss Rush and trying to complete certain Retro Achievements challenges.

Retro Achievements for this had a decent but challenging set; complete all of the levels and find the hidden switches in certain levels, the infamous “no hit, bullsh*t” boss fights, complete Extra Mode, and win the 3 mini-games. The damageless boss fights definitely took some time, especially with Meta Knight. You’d think the Boss Rush would be easy since we had to learn to battle the bosses without taking damage anyway, but the RNG really got us at times too.

Overall, this was a really cool game with a fun Halloween theme, other than the lag and button delay issues, a very well done NES Kirby hack!

14/10/2024

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EPISODE 200
KIRBY’S HALLOWEEN ADVENTURE (PART 2)

Celebrating Halloween with Kirby should have rewarded us with plenty of sweets, but instead, we ended up with salt, lots of salt. My biggest complaint are the controls, there were so many times Kirby should have jumped or attacked and the button inputs just go unresponsive; it’s like it’s too much for the NES to handle! The original game suffers from the same problem but I don’t remember it being as frustratingly difficult as this game has been with it.

While we did finish the main adventure completing all 7 worlds, finding the hidden switches, and taking on all of the bosses damageless, we really struggled with the additional content, primarily the Boss Rush. I did complete it off-stream though along with the Egg Catcher and Quick Draw mini-games for Retro Achievements. I was so inspired that I actually switched to the original Kirby’s Adventure and completed Boss Rush on there as well as that was a remaining Retro Achievement from when we played last year.

So with all that knocked out, completing Kirby’s Halloween Adventure in Extra Mode is the only challenge that remains to earn our Retro Achievements mastery!

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13/10/2024

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EPISODE 199
KIRBY’S HALLOWEEN ADVENTURE

We’re returning to Kirby’s Adventure for the NES, but this time, it takes the original game and turns it into a cool Halloween adventure. It will be a long journey, but can we complete the main game and many challenges ahead to earn another Retro Achievements mastery?

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10/10/2024

SUPER MARIO: OIRAM’S INVASION
SUPER NINTENDO (SMW HACK)

We earned our 52ND Retro Achievements mastery completing yet another Gamma V SMW Hack called Super Mario: Oiram’s Invasion.

The game was a fun, short adventure where Mario traverses 12 levels to stop an alien invasion of the Mushroom Kingdom. Each level has its own theme, and while the hack is slightly on the difficult side, nothing felt too over the top, except for the final level, typical, LOL!

Retro Achievements for this consisted of general level completion, finding the hidden 1-Ups in several levels, and of course, my favorite, small Mario runs of each level except for the final level. You know the final level is going to be a chaotic mess when Retro Achievements makes an exception, LOL! The small Mario runs weren’t too bad but they had challenging moments for sure.

Overall, this was a fun adventure to play through with some cool level ideas.

10/10/2024

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EPISODE 198
SUPER MARIO: OIRAM’S INVASION

We return with another adventure for today to play through Super Mario: Oiram’s Invasion. It’s almost Christmas and the Mushroom Kingdom is being attacked by a Mario look-a-like?! Regardless of the season, this game will have some spooky vibes so let’s see if we can complete the game and earn another Retro Achievements mastery.

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10/10/2024

Check out the new Mario & Luigi Brothership trailer! I’ll be excited to stream this when it releases in November! 😃

It’s all hands on deck for a nautical journey full of twists and turns! Learn all about the fractured world of Concordia, the quirky friends and foes you’ll ...

10/10/2024

IL MANIERO SPETTRALE (THE GHOSTLY MANSION)
SUPER NINTENDO (SMW HACK)

We earned our 51ST Retro Achievements mastery completing a really cool but very short Halloween themed SMW Hack called Il Maniero Spettrale, which I think roughly translates to The Haunted Manor or something, LOL!

This game was a lot of fun, a sort of “Metroidvania” Luigi adventure where we explore a large manor and rescue the 17 ghosts trapped inside. Even though we had a couple of mishaps, the game was definitely well designed and had some interesting ideas too.

Retro Achievements for this game was simple; find all 17 ghosts and escape the manor within 20 minutes. Luckily the time requirement was generous, we completed it just shy of 18 minutes, LOL!

Overall, this is a great Halloween themed SMW Hack and I definitely enjoyed it.