Game:

Monster Maulers (1993)

Duration: 34:04

273 views

4

A 1-credit clear of the arcade game Monster Maulers, rom name mmaulers, played with WolfMAME 0.261. Final score: 763,400. I nearly had the 1cc yesterday, then had attempt after attempt where something went wrong at one of the regular bosses, at Robo-Gorilla, at the final boss, or of course at Ducker. Finally I had a run with no big mistakes and non-horrible RNG on Ducker and Robo-Gorilla. After the credits roll a second loop begins, and the second loop doesn't seem to be any harder - but Ducker killed me again in the second loop, finishing off my second life.

This is a neat game! I think it was more profitable to focus on player-versus-player fighting games but for me, fighting against the CPU, it's fun to play games like this or Red Earth that focus on battles against the CPU. I like the cheeky cameos from Konami's other games (Moai from Gradius, Brainy from Salamander). I love the fact that the strategies for each fight are so different, and that the tricks for low-rank Diablo are different from high-rank Diablo. I love the sprite work - Happy's bridge looks especially sharp. The Ducker fight is a frustrating mess, and the Fungus exploit is boring, but I'm glad I played it.

This is 1cc #750 - that's a lot! Can I get to 1,000? Only time will tell!