Gauntlet Legends - 100%?

[pbj]

My goals are simple this year.  Some demon sent me an N64 flash cart, so I had to go buy a damn N64 again.  Turned out it was the only Nintendo console I didn’t currently own besides Switch 2 and Virtual Boy and nobody wants that garbage anyway. 

I bought one back in the 90s solely for Gauntlet Legends and despite being ugly looking and too dark, I think it’s the best version of it.  But I never actually beat it.  By the time I could afford a PC that could run it, I already had Diablo 3 and this was way too primitive.  And despite all those guys here selling junk computers they stole from work claiming otherwise, nobody was running this game 100% in MAME until relatively recently.  Then it turned out the arcade game was a tedious quarter pumper.

The main problem with the console versions is your health.  It doesn’t steadily drain but once you get low you’re stuck playing levels over and over to slowly regain it.  The N64 version does let you sell items, which helps, but health is too expensive.

This is also meant to be a multiplayer game and tilts very heavily towards that.  I couldn’t get many people to play it with me back then and the ones that occasionally indulged me are dead now.  Such is life.

So, given “external factors” I’ve mentally regressed into mindless entertainment as a relief valve, so it is time to revisit this game.

The controllers were taken apart, cleaned, and the blown out analog sticks replaced with modern Hall effect joysticks.  10/10 mod, would recommend.

Then as I started playing the game, I realized it was very easy to hide in a corner and hold down the fire button and just let your character do all the work.  Then I realized I could just jam in a toothpick and walk away.



I’ve noticed the generators stop spawning after around 1,000 enemies.  You can go up and whack it, downgrade the enemies a notch, and reset the counter.  Eventually you destroy the generator.

So, as a test, I bled the first level dry.  Every five minutes or so, I’d check in on it.  Whack the generator, or move onto the next one. 


Image isn’t great, but that’s a 9.  Over 9,000 enemies killed in the very first level.  That was enough XP to jump up to level 24.  Level 25 comes quickly and then you get your animal companion that shoots alongside you and makes all this even easier.



Anyway, let it crank today and checked in on it every now and then, got to level 50.  Now I’m actually playing it.  Despite all that leveling, the first world enemies still take just as many hits to kill.  The later realms seem like a cake walk thus far.  The first two bosses were slaughtered easily.

2026 - I’m beating this damn game.