Super Sobou Land: A 19 Week Journey

When the Summer of Beatsome was in its final days, I got the idea to mark my progress with another banner. The act itself is simple to update, easy to deal with, and is good for motivation. Plus, I’m a statistics-loving guy and being able to look at my progress since a certain time on a daily basis is motivating and inspiring for me. Plus, I don’t need to stress about either trying to change my theme because I’m sick of it for how long I’ve had it around or looking for more material to use for a banner.

That’s where Super Sobou Land was born. Looking through The Spriter’s Resource for maps and map tile sets brought me to the Game Boy Color version of Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. Deluxe. Essentially an upgraded port, they added a little map for each of the eight worlds contained within the game. The person who ripped the sprite sheet also added a tile set into it, and this tile set was so easy to work with that I built my banner out of it.

Super Sobou Land at the start (click for bigger image).

The plan was to have Luigi go through six worlds, each with a various number of stages within. Each stage was an Unfinished game, and at the time I had 98 of them. With a world designed to have 98 red stages – including the castles – I thought it’d be fun to watch Luigi make progress as he took out World 1’s Castle, or took down World 2-4 through 2-7 in a single day. Cheeky nonsensical fun, and it made progressing through unfinished games into a game. I’d mark what happened to every game, regardless of whether I’d nulled it, removed it, beaten, completed, mastered… you get the idea.

As for new games, that’s what I had that little red pipe next to the final castle represent. It was clear I wouldn’t only have 98 unfinished games to take down during all this, so I plotted to have another banner afterwards. It made the map less “THE” 98 Unfinished, and more “the first 98 Unfinished on the pile”.

33 updates later, we're at the end of the road.

If my plan was to get back to having no Unfinished games left, that plan kinda failed. Between sales, gifts, Christmas, personal purchases, the desire to ruin someone not being a minion and so on, I actually ended up with six more Unfinished games at the end of this journey than when I began. If nothing else, I kept myself from becoming a Double Minion (Minion being having at least 100 Unfinished titles in your collection)!

But, the biggest failing of this map is that it never showed just what I had changed. If a person was attentive to my update history, they’d know, but for everyone else they’d only see that I had beaten a game, not what game I had beaten. I kept a log written down of everything I had done, and this post is mainly to remedy this problem.

[Note: CCC stands for Capcom Classics Collection]

 Games Beaten (29/96) 

1. Portal 2 (Steam)
2. Jamestown (Steam)
3. Mega Man Powered Up (PSP)
4. Genma Onimusha (Xbox)
5. The Binding of Isaac (Steam)
6. Dynasty Warriors Advance (GBA)
7. The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Anniversary Edition (DSiWare)
8. River City Ransom (VC)
9. Final Fantasy IV: The After Years (PSP)
10. Monster Tale (NDS)
11. Dynasty Warriors 5 (PS2)
12. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Steam)
13. Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions (PSP)
14. Eufloria (Steam)
15. Dead Rising 2 (Steam)
16. Really Big Sky (Steam)
17. Minecraft (PC)
18. Limbo (Steam)
19. Ys I & II Chronicles: Ys II (PSP)
20. Guilty Gear Judgment (PSP)
21. Astro Tripper (Steam)
22. Zeit² (Steam)
23. Mega Man Maverick Hunter X (PSP)
24. Enslaved: Odyssey to the West (360)
25. Rock of Ages (Steam)
26. ActRaiser (VC)
27. Dungeon Defenders (Steam)
28. Ultimate Ghosts ‘n Goblins (PSP)
29. de Blob (Wii)

 Games Completed (37/96)

1. Half-Life: Opposing Force (Steam)
2. Lunar: Dragon Song (NDS)
3. Capcom Classics Mini Mix: Bionic Commando (GBA)
4. Castlevania Chronicles (PS1 Classics)
5. Your Doodles Are Bugged! (Steam)
6. Zombie Shooter (Steam)
7. Super Mario Kart (VC)
8. Sequence (Steam)
9. Ben There, Dan That! (Steam)
10. Granny in Paradise (Steam)
11. Trino (Steam)
12. CCC Remixed: Bionic Commando (PSP)
13. CCC Remixed: Black Tiger (PSP)
14. CCC Remixed: Last Duel (PSP)
15. CCC Reloaded: 1943 (PSP)
16. CCC Reloaded: Eco Fighters (PSP)
17. CCC Reloaded: SonSon (PSP)
18. CCC Reloaded: Pirate Ship Higemaru (PSP)
19. Rampart (GBC)
20. CCC Reloaded: Exed Exes (PSP)
21. CCC Reloaded: Commando (PSP)
22. CCC Reloaded: Knights of the Round (PSP)
23. CCC Reloaded: 1943 Kai (PSP)
24. CCC Reloaded: Mercs
25. CCC Reloaded: The King of Dragons (PSP)
26. CCC Remixed: 1941: Counter Attack (PSP)
27. CCC Remixed: Three Wonders (PSP)
28. CCC Remixed: Quiz & Dragons (PSP)
29. CCC Remixed: Avengers (PSP)
30. CCC Remixed: Block Block (PSP)
31. CCC Remixed: Captain Commando (PSP)
32. CCC Remixed: Final Fight (PSP)
33. CCC Remixed: Forgotten Worlds (PSP)
34. CCC Remixed: Magic Sword: Heroic Fantasy (PSP)
35. CCC Remixed: Mega Twins (PSP)
36. CCC Remixed: Section Z (PSP)
37. CCC Remixed: Side Arms: Hyper Dyne (PSP)

 Games Beaten & Completed (2/96) 

1. Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls: Final Fantasy II (GBA)
2. Contra III: The Alien Wars (VC)

 Games Nulled (6/96)

1. Game & Watch Gallery 2 (GB)
2. Game & Watch Gallery 3 (GBC)
3. StarCraft 64 (N64)
4. Age of Empires (PC)
5. Age of Empires: The Rise of Rome (PC)
6. Inside a Starry-Filled Sky (Steam)

 Games Removed (22/96)

1. X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse (PS2)
2. Trauma Center: Under the Knife (NDS)
3. Freedom Force (Steam)
4. Freedom Force vs The Third Reich (Steam)
5. Maximo: Ghosts to Glory (PS2)
6. AaAaAA!!! – A Reckless Disregard for Gravity (Steam)
7. Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Steam)
8. Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon (NDS)
9. Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones (GBA)
10. Fire Emblem (GBA)
11. Bit.Trip Beat (Steam)
12. Stacking (XBLA)
13. Capcom Classics Mini Mix: Strider (GBA)
14. Crash Bandicoot (PS1 Classics)
15. Alien vs. Predator Classic 2000 (Steam)
16. Delve Deeper (Steam)
17. Toki Tori (Steam)
18. Knights in the Nightmare (PSP)
19. Bit.Trip Runner (Steam)
20. Fate of the World (Steam)
21. Gratuitous Space Battles (Steam)
22. Night Sky (Steam)

The reason it is 96 and not 98 is due to a few errors. Contra III: The Alien Wars was mistakenly recorded twice on the map, and Fire Emblem was never an Unfinished game for this map. It works out well in the end though, as that makes the big final castle not a world at all. Fuse this with my new banner, and it is as if Luigi has entered Castlevania where he now must assemble a 104-piece password to save the day from the Evil Lord Bak’Laag. Onward, to more progress!