Will's blog

Pro tip: Castlevania's Death is a pushover

The first Castlevania game is pretty tough, mostly because the enemies are way more maneuverable than you and hit harder than you, which seems a little unfair. One of the more common sticking points is the boss of the fifth area, Death. But, with the proper preparation, he goes down pretty easily.

One of the first candles you come across contains Holy Water.

You're going to want to hang onto it for the duration of the level, and make sure you use it frequently enough that you get the Triple Shot.

Don't be tempted by the Cross toward the end, that's Fool's Gold.

Then, once you get to Death's room, start jumping and lobbing Holy Water on the upper-right platform.

Death will come down, land on the explosions, and get stunned.

Keep on jumping, tossing Holy Water, jumping, tossing Holy Water, etc. until

You win!

And Death didn't even have a chance to move.

Pro tip: Unlimited continues in Tiny Toons Adventures: Buster Busts Loose

Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose isn't really that tough of a game, but if you haven't yet clocked a few thousand hours into honing your reflexes, it might be kind of tough.

But, you can give yourself a few more chances to make it through the game.

Go to the Password screen

Put in this password

And go to town. If you lose, and go to continue:

You'll notice that where it normally says that you have 5 continues, that it says nothing at all. And that means that there's limitless continues at your disposal.

Use them well!

Pro tip: enabling Very Hard Mode in Tetris Attack

Is Tetris Attack too easy for you? Playing against the computer just not giving you the challenge that it once did? Well, you can ratchet the difficulty up one more notch... if you feel up to the challenge.

All you have to do is start a new game, go to the difficulty select

Highlight 'Hard', hold L & Up, and press A. Done right, the background will go from pink to red

Letting you know that you're in for a challenge.

Are you up to it?

Pro tip: An invisible secret nothing in Super Mario World

You remember the Top Secret Area in Super Mario World, right? Well, it's got one more secret up its sleeve.

Take a look at this screenshot.

Looks pretty normal, right? But I'd like to draw your attention to this area about in the middle of the screen, toward the bottom.

If you take Yoshi and hold Up while pressing Y, his tongue will shoot out, but he'll be standing up.

If you're positioned correctly, you'll hear a 'thup-thup' sound, like his tongue is bouncing off of something that he can't eat, like a keyhole. But there's nothing there.

Weird, huh?

Pro tip: Starting off with partners in Castlevania III

In Castlevania III, you run across these helper characters that you can take along on your journey to put the beatdown on Dracula. The thing is, though, that you have to choose the correct path, and they're pretty deep into the game.

But you can bypass all of that.

When you start the game, at the Name Entry screen, if you put in this name.

You can start with Grant as your partner

If you put in this one

You start out with Sypha

And if you put in this one

You start out with Alucard

Of course, this keeps you from getting lots of free lives, so you'll have to decide whether or not the trade-off is worth it to you.

Pro tip: A Quick 2-Hit Combo for Guile in Street Fighter 2

Today, I'm going to share one a quick-'n'-easy two hit combo with Street Fighter's Guile.

First, you're going to want to hold Back on the controller to charge for the Sonic Boom. Then press Forward and Weak punch to throw it.

Keep holding Forward to walk toward your opponent, trailing your projectile, after it hits,

follow it up with a Fierce Punch.

Done right, you'll be able to hit your opponent with both of them for a quick 2-hit combo!

And, if you can back your opponent in the corner he won't slide back so far when the initial hit smacks him, giving him less time to recover and avoid the second hit.

Since this is kind of tough to show the timing in picture form, I've created an animated .gif here(4.5MB) that shows it in action.

Oh, and it also works for Street Fighter 4.

Pro tip: Playing as Eyedol in the SNES Killer Instinct

Killer Instinct, like a lot of fighting games, has a ridiculously unbalanced final boss character. One that will nearly make you break your controller in frustration the first few times you face him.

But what if there were a way to use him as your own character?

Well, good news for you!

If you select Cinder

And then on the Vs. screen hold Right on the control pad and quickly press

L, R, X, B, Y, A

Done correctly, you should hear the announcer say "Eyedol", and once you get into the match

He will be yours to command! He's slightly toned down from when the computer's playing him, and he's kind of tough to maneuver. But, hey, you're playing the boss! That counts for something, right?

Pro tip: Skipping levels in Little Nemo The Dream Master

Basing a video game on a movie that itself was based on a comic that was written in the 1900s seems like an odd thing to do, but Little Nemo The Dream Master is just that, apparently.

The game's stages are actually a little on the long side, but you have a secret weapon at your disposal.

Go to the title screen

And press

Up, Select, Left, Right, A, A, B

Done right you'll have a new option, "Dream Select".

If you move your cursor down to it, you can press the A button to hear a sound, every time you do, you'll skip that level. Press it once to start on Level 2, twice for Level 3, and so on.

Which is an easy way to continue more or less where you left off if you decide to give up and turn your NES off for a while.

Pro tip: Viewing a Secret Message in Attack of the Killer Tomatoes

Attack of the Killer Tomatoes was a pretty terrible movie, which, for some reason, got re-imagined as an even worse Saturday morning cartoon series, which in turn had a video game based on it.

But say you're playing the game and you run out of lives.

Normally you see this message (if you have any continues left)

But!

If you hold Down + Left + A + B, before the screen comes up, a different message appears

Kind of sappy, eh?

Pro tip: Seing the ending to The Magic of Scheherazade any time you want

The Magic of Scheherazade isn't a super-long game or anything, but it is a little lengthy to play through in one sitting. And your progress is saved via passwords, so if you want to take your old saved game for a spin, you're going to have trouble if you've misplaced your old password sheet.

But, you've got a secret weapon.

Just go to the password screen and put in this password

Press Start and the ending sequence will begin!

I'm sure you can find a way to use this information to your advantage.

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