The Flipside of Gaming
We’re still in “low effort” mode here while DragonCon is going on, so here is a video list (2 hours 26 minutes long) of U Can Beat Videogames‘ 100 “top” secrets in games, whatever “top” means here. Most popular? Most famous? Can’t say. It does serve as an entertaining condensation of years of UCBVG’s strategy videos. Watch it directly to remember old games, or leave it on in the background while you do other things.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has a reputation of being one of the “best” games ever made. Professor Brigands of VG101 recently spent around twelve hours making a video walkthrough of the whole thing, even finding every Heart Piece, and even every Gold Skulltula, despite the fact, as they say frequently, that the reward is in no way worth it. Each video is approximately three hours long; maybe you can have it playing in the background while doing other things.
First video (beginning to the end of the second dungeon + extras):
Second video (Jabu-Jabu’s Belly through to the end of the Forest Temple):
Third video (the Fire Temple, the Water Temple and the fetch quest to get Biggoron’s Sword):
Fourth video (The Shadow and Spirit Temples and the end):
Is that not enough? Rival channel U Can Beat Video Games has been churning through all of Final Fantasy VI (a.k.a. III, it’s complicated), having done five videos so far with one left to go, with videos ranging in length between 3⅓ to 4 hours: Part One – Part Two – Part Three – Part Four – Part Five.
It’s Halloween today! Boo! I don’t mean that in a bad way, I mean it enthusiastically! Boo, I say!
Growing up I was never a big fan of Halloween, other than the opportunity to get candy. I never wore a costume out. This has changed a bit in recent years, I still don’t dress up but I do try to observe the season. Today I’m running a video marathon of various things over on cytu.be. If you know me, you might know where to look to find it, if you’re interested in such things, but this isn’t really the place for it.
While waiting for trick or treaters, here’s a few vids to help you pass the time.
MrMatthews reviews all the Gameboy Castlevania titles (29m), a collection that rates from pretty good to abysmal. But that’s not what he says, he pretty much likes them all, even Adventure and Legends.
U Can Beat Video game’s walkthrough of NES Castlevania (35m), and Video Games 101’s walkthrough of the same game (26m). There’s UCBVG’s run of Castlevania Bloodlines (2h14m). My favorite though is UCBVG’s run of Castlevania III, a 2 hour, 22 minute epic that covers all characters and routes, which is what I’m embedding here. Note, though, that it doesn’t go through the more difficult second loop….
If your tastes run a bit more academic, Jeremy Parish has some dives into the Castlevania games: the original (16m) II: Simon’s Quest (15½m), Super IV (17m) and Circle of the Moon (23m). He hasn’t done III yet it seems. His old design discussions of the NES Castlevania games at anatomyofgames.com are still up, marred a bit by the fact that the site’s been hacked to host links to casino sites. Earlier this month Jeremy appeared on the Still Loading podcast to talk about the ‘Vainia, which you can listen to on the site, or on Youtube (1h33m). The embeds below are of the original and the podcast:
To finish off, an early Sundry item, TerminalMontage’s “Something About Castlevania” animation (4m). This is basically Simon Belmont’s whole personality: violence.
We’ve linked the Youtube channel of U Can Beat Video Games repeatedly in the past, most recently for their sprawling guide to Final Fantasy II(IV). Yet they keep making new videos. Just a few days ago they did a video on all of of Book I of Ys for the TurboGrafx 16/PC Engine, with one on Book II promised soon. And since they post (usually) weekly, if I did a post here every time they released a video, it’d become one-seventh of our posts!
Here is the video on Ys Book I, it’s 2 hours and 2 minutes:
And here is a directory of every game video U Can Beat Video Games has put up to date. I haven’t inlined the videos because there’s over a hundred!
Bucky O’Hare (NES, 1h6m)
The Lone Ranger (NES, 1h57m)
The Adventures of Bayou Billy (NES, 56m)
Jackal (NES, 44m)
The Goonies II (NES, 48m)
and…
EXTRA: Top Ten NES Missed Secrets (17m)
It’s yet another Youtube video post, but the subject is pretty notable, U Can Beat Video Games at last tackling the highlight of the Metroid series, Super Metroid for SNES, in an epic-length episode. Often big games get split up into multiple parts, but this time the whole game is covered at once. These videos can’t be easy to put together, and I appreciate the effort that goes into them!
As usual UCBVG covers the entire game, including all items and known cheats, and alternate endings. If you’ve ever wondered why GDQ players, hosts and audience ever shout “Kill the animals” or “Save the animals,” the ending to this video should fill in the blanks to an acceptable degree.
U Can Beat Video Games: Super Metroid (3 hours 37 minutes)
We’re brought up U Can Beat Video Games before (here’s all of the videos they’ve done to date, and here is their home page with a merch store), but this time they’ve covered Super Mario Bros. 3 in their typically completionist style, covering every level and every secret in the entire game. Sometimes they split a long game into two or even three videos, but not this time, this one video goes through the whole game, and it’s three hours and 23 minutes long! The other reason to link them this time is it’s their 100th video!
They’ve done some other interesting games since the last time we linked them, which was when they covered A Link To The Past. Some particular games they’ve done in the meantime:
Even if you don’t have an interest in seeing these games taken apart so thoroughly, many people enjoy using their videos as background while doing other things. In a Youtube environment where video makers feel encouraged to go nuts with editing and fill their footage with distracting noises, UCBVG is a model for how to create interesting and informative videos. They are great! And they have a couple of adorable dogs who appear in every video, too!
U Can Beat Video Games (their YouTube channel) has only been around for a bit over a year, but they’ve already covered a lot of challenging games. It serves as a complete video playthrough, often revealing all the game’s secrets, and has remarkably restrained and helpful audio commentary by YouTube standards.
UCBVG videos cover the entire game, and can be long. The most recent, the covering A Link to the Past with a second part, is nearly two hours but it uses YouTube’s timeline annotations to mark any potential trouble spots you may have. Even if you’ve mastered the games he covers, I find it relaxing to watch anyway to refresh my memory on these decades-old amusements.
To date, UCBVG has covered 70 titles across the NES, SNES, Game Boy, and Mega Drive/Genesis. Some highlights include their videos on the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for NES (the first game on the channel), Mega Man I, II, and III, The Legend of Zelda, its second quest, and it’s sequel, Ghosts ‘n Goblins, Legacy of the Wizard (a.k.a. Dragon Slayer IV), Castlevania and Simon’s Quest, Blaster Master, Punch-Out!!, Ninja Gaiden and its first sequel, Clash at Demonhead, Metal Gear, Crystalis, Wizards & Warriors and its sequel Ironsword, Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy (in two parts), Actraiser, The Guardian Legend, Kirby’s Dream Land (including Extra Mode!), the weird and unique The Magic of Scheherazade, Sonic the Hedgehog, and even the notorious Battletoads, among many other games.
They update weekly, so why not take a look!