#2. March 16-April 15 Winning Games Playthrough/Discussion

We're doing it a little different this time. Since our winning game was Lufia 2, a somewhat lengthy RPG to my understanding, the allotted time has been extended to a month. We've also added in a second game, Mega Man 7, for a bit of variety.

• You'll need an account at Retro Achievements to participate. If you're new, post your RA username here and we'll add it to the list.
  
  
• You can use either RetroArch or the individual emulators available at Retro Achievements' site, whichever is easier.
  
  
• Either Hardcore Mode(without savestates) or Normal Mode(with states) is allowed. You get double the points, and bragging rights, with Hardcore Mode. Two awards are available, one for the first person to win Normal Mode, and the first person to win Hardcore Mode.
  
  
• When you get 100% completion, post a screenshot and link to your RA profile for verification.
  
  
• If you have a live stream, post it here. We'd like to see it.

Okay. Play and discuss!

LOL I'm outta practice, even Burst Man's no-damage achievement gave me more trouble than I expected.

I never actually owned, rented, or beat MM7 back in the day so I remember absolutely nothing about it, but that's exactly how I like it. I think I'll just do a blind-run on hardcore and see what I end up with. Of course this puts me at a pretty large disadvantage achievement-points-wise, but that's also how I like it. :)

In the immortal words of Al Bundy: Let's rock. (it puns me greatly to say that) :P

BigJoe raised a good question with me in chat just now, whether we have to play one game or the other first.

Play Megaman 7 first, Lufia II first, or both at once if you're really dexterous.

I'm taking a bit of a liking to Lufia II, despite not being much of an RPG guy. The control isn't as good as Terranigma or Chrono Trigger, and the battle menu takes a bit of getting used to. The graphics and music are pretty good, though.

Just a protip. Many of the pieces of equipment with IP skills are better than straight stats. You can feed a lot of found gear to capsule monsters.

Another tip for Lufia 2 (spoiler tagged for spoilers)

Spoiler: show

Later, about halfway through the game a dungeon called the Ancient Cave becomes available. You can't take anything with you inside unless you found it in a blue chest inside, and all of your party starts at Lv1 (Capsule monsters included) for the duration of each trip (whether you die and get kicked out, or find the Providence item)
Fun fact about the Ancient Cave: Anything found in blue chests OUTSIDE of the Ancient cave can be brought in with you, so keep all of your Blue Chest gear and don't feed it to a CM, or sell it as you can give yourself a head start on getting some nice gear from the cave to use in the rest of the story.

Have fun with that.

So I don't think anyone will get Spare Refrigerator unless it can be gotten at the final Wily Stage (which, the achievement does NOT clear on whether or not it can).

The amount of practice required is far too great to be going back through Freeze Man's stage ever 3 times you fail at it. The Junk Shield also helps VERY LITTLE, and is mostly only good for finishing him off quickly if he's close to done anyway (does more damage than a charged buster shot). And I can say that while I have gotten better at fighting him, I am done wasting my time on it. I suspect everyone else will have trouble with it as well.

HA! But I DID get Vegetable Cutter. Slash Man isn't so bad if you know how to avoid his pods of Red Stuff.

I think I ran through about 5 bosses in MM7. Not too rusty for not having played the old series in some time.