Game:

Jim Power: The Lost Dimension in 3-D (1993)

Duration: 1:02:12

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This is a re-upload of my Jim Power playthrough but with commentary on what it took for me to beat and exactly how I went about putting the game together.

No continues lost and on the default "easy" setting. I spent 5 days just practicing the levels before putting the whole game together as a whole.

For level 7 ,the final level, a day was dedicated to practicing that level and running through it several times, once every part was practiced. Around 8 hours of on and off practice.

This was my first time beating the game as well. I had switched from practicing the game with a joystick, to beating it with a joypad. So I didnt practice anything with the pad, which made some end segments more difficult. The part towards the end where I lose 4 lives (platforms and fireballs on stage 7) has always been a hit or miss part for me.

This game was rated the #1 hardest game of all time by an old issue of EGM magazine. Thats what got me interested in the game back then. I purchased it cheap at the time and could only make it to the 6th level boss back then. I dreaded playing the game back then. This time it was much less stressful and satisfying to finally put it together.

Very spastic and tedious game. Compared to the original amiga version it seems this port was sped up. Maybe an issue with converting the PAL framerate to NTSC.

The bosses in this game are all very easy, including the mid bosses of each stage.

The second and fifth levels are also very easy and more like bonus stages where you can collect more lives.

Stages 3,6 and 7 are the hardest stages of the game. It took me longer than expected because I didnt practice the early stages as thoroughly as I should have.

In this game its best to shoot as you advance constantly, often times. Enemies will pop out very quickly and just run into you. Especially for stage 4 its important to do that. Stage 4 is best to take especially slow and constantly shoot.

This applies for all of the side scrolling , walking stages . Stages 1,4 and 7.

The best method to practice this game for me, was to make a Save state on stages ,3,4,5,6 and 7. Stage 1 you start on and can just reset to practice. Stage 2 is very easy just slow paced. You have to check the map alot for stage 2 to make sure that you dont use the wrong keys at the wrong gates. So you always want to count your keys and plan how you move through that stage. Its the same each time, so once its memorized you dont need the map. I never practiced the stage seperately, so never had it memorized.

For practicing the stages I would save state at various parts of each stage. Practicing any parts that might cost me a life. Just to make sure it came natural. So I might play some parts 10, 20, or more times. Didnt count but waited until it felt comfortable. Some parts never felt right to me, but I had done them enough times to have a strong chance of getting them in my full run.

After practicing a level in segments I would then start the level from the beginning and beat it multiple times in a row. To make sure I was able to put the whole level together. With stage 7 especially , 3 and 6 it was very important to play through them many times in a row. With a high rate of completions. This was done with the 4 default lives for each stage. I did this because the game gives you 3 continues, with 4 lives each. I wanted to make sure that I would be able to beat any stage that I had to continue from. Once I got good at the game I amassed lives and that allowed for more deaths.

If you only have the cartridge then you can use the stage select code to practice each stage as well. You just cant practice the segments as easily.

So that was my method to beat the game. Just very tedious, but if you make sure you have all the parts down, then you should be able to beat it within a few attempts.

It took me maybe 3 or 4 attempts after practicing for 5 days. I was very close on maybe the third attempt when my fucking screen saver came on and got me killed.

Because it was so fresh in my mind I was able to beat it without any continues lost and 3 lives left. The places where I lost lives were usually on the easier parts, and wasnt needed.

My only goal was to beat this game however. The only difference between the difficulty settings is the number of lives you start with on each credit. Hard starts you with 2 lives and easy with 4. Since I didnt lose a credit, and had 3 lives remaining, this run was pretty much the equivalent of beating the game on hard with no continues lost and 1 life remaining.

I will try to get up more videos as I KILL off more games. I dont have a capture device yet, so it wont be too frequent until I get one

I played on an emulator and used load and save states to practice only. The full run was completely legit.

I use this practice technique to put together many games. For this game I had to refine that technique more, so it was a good test.

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