PixlBit

I got scores/progress on all my owned NES games and began my Genesis stuff. I also played the remaining games on my Xbox Series hard drive and stowed the deck to bring out the Switch next week. Some purchases made also and a return to Star Fleet (known as X-Bomber in Japan). 

Retro Progress

I'm playing my NES games on a Retron 3. I'd like my 1993 New Style NES deck back, but it's hundreds of dollars these days. Not going to happen. I'll make do. These are the scores/progress I recorded for what I own physically this time around in roughly chronological order of release. 

Xevious - 6100. This is a very good port, but it's still hard. 
1942 - 26400. At least I get continues here, but the score resets each time. It's hard like the orginal. A good port. 
Dragon Warrior - I got to level 3 before I got killed by a ghost. Why does the king task you with saving the princess but only gives you enough cash to get a club and what amounts to a t-shirt? This must be the poorest kingdom ever. I can't even make enough to keep myself in herbs fighting slimes and ghosts. 
Arkanoid - 24,520. Excellent game. I'm still looking for that dial controller it originally came with. Perhaps I could do better with one. 
RBI Baseball - A really excellent and easy to learn baseball game, but the AI teams are brutal. I can't make any headway against them. 
Final Fantasy - I got to level 4 with a party of two fighters, a white mage and a thief (rolled up randomly, as is my way). Half my party was killed by Madponys and the rest on the way to safety by Creeps (or was it the other way around?). At least the king gave me enough to outfit my party at the start.
Wizardry - I got a level 1 party wipe surprised by Highwaymen who decapitated all. Brilliant. 
Jackal - I nearly got to the helipad to deliver the prisoners. Why can you only shoot your machine gun in one direction? Fun game though. 
Sky Shark - I still haven't broken the minimum 20k to get on the leaderboards. Brutally hard game. I'm so glad the original arcade game is available now in the Toaplan collection. 
Iron Sword: Wizards & Warriors II - This is a just a terrible platformer that looks bad. The cover is so cool but the in-game graphics suggest a kids platformer. Birds knock you off your platforms constantly. I'm trading this. 
Astyanax - There's this spot in the very first level that stops me every time. You jump, an evil plant appears just as you land, and you take damage or are knocked into a pit. It seems unavoidable. Yuk. Trade!
Pinbot - 2,716,600. I did surprisingly well this time. It's a good pinball port but mostly uninteresting. You would think they could have put at least another table on this cart. 
Skull & Crossbones - This is an action/platformer where you easily slip off platforms. I like that you're jumping and shooting/throwing on a pirate ship, but I can't abide the controls and slip-slidey surfaces. Trade. 

That was all my NES games. I broke out a true Genesis deck and played about half my physical games this week. The Genesis is great - very few problems getting games to load unlike the NES carts on my Retron. 

Fire Shark - 185,210. This is a vast improvement on what Sky Shark was. It's a touch easier but still crazy challenging. Lots of upgrades to pick up. Looks great with good music. I love the wild designs of the tanks on the ground. My only issue is there is no box art. It just has a generic looking white label on the cart. What's up with that? 
Golden Axe - Scored a 77 on arcade mode. I'm not sure how I could do much better. Hit detection occurs at a mysterious special spot relative to an enemy that I haven't quite mastered yet, if it even can be. 
PGA Tour - +19 (91 on par 72) for The Sterling Classic, round one (disqualified for further rounds). I do my best to guess wind effects and shot power, but unless I just nail the accuracy (which is not easy with so small a meter) strange slices occur sending the ball into the deep rough. It's infuriating to do the math and have the result not match what you expect. It's still fun though. Better with a friend than against pro AI. 
Shining in the Darkness - Dead at level 3 from a Killer Bee and 2 Blue Jellies. The whole time I'm looking for my teammates which the tavern keeper says are looking for me. Turns out, you have to beat the first boss solo before they show up. Well, I wrote out the map on graph paper like I used to do. That was fun. I never had enough money to get more than a good sword and a bag full of herbs. After that it was just restocking the herbs. I never had enough for that cool armor I needed. Economics in these old RPGs is attrocious. 
Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego - This isn't totally bad. It's even interesting, but I wasn't in the mood for guessing which time to travel to and who to talk to for evidence enough to catch the crook. I'm trading it. 
Road Rash II - I qualified on all 5 tracks and unlocked level 2 tracks. I bought a Panda 500 bike. I'm going to keep playing it next week. It's a lot of fun racing, fighting with the other bikers and avoiding the cops. 

Xbox Series Plays

Heretic + Hexen - I played through all of Heretic and a few levels of Hexen. I find it a bit annoying guessing what a particular switch does when you pull it. Where is that door that opened, that platform that dropped? Do I have a time limit to go find it? Do I have to pull two switches quickly in sequence to get something to happen? I find myself running in circles a lot of the time trying to find that secret door or that platform that dropped just to progress. I still have to finish the last two levels of Heretic because I got so fed up with such stuff. Same with Hexen. There's an area where you have to pull two switches quickly in sequence, but they are not close to each other. I just couldn't get them to lock and open the way forward, so I stopped for now. Fun stuff though, despite my gripes. 
Valiant Hearts: Coming Home - I finished this and got all the achievements. It's short but good. It tells the story of the African American soldiers in WWI. There are light puzzles to solve, a rhythm game and collectibles with real history facts to find and read about. A sad and tragic story - a very rewarding play. 
Sengoku 3 - This is an old NeoGeo/arcade beat 'em up. I found the hit detection really difficult to find. That is, that spot on the screen where you score a hit. It's a little hard to tell depth in these side scrolling brawlers. This just infurated me at this play through. I'll return though. 

Purchases

Heretic + Hexen: On a sale for $10. Heretic was PC only, but I still have my N64 Hexen cart. I'm glad to revisit Heretic after all these years. These were 90s goto FPS games for MK and I on old IBM PCs running probably Windows 3.0 or something. 
Game & Watch Gallery (Game Boy) - This is on the Swtich sub service, but I wanted a hard copy to play on my Game Boy ($15). Simple games like these seem perfect for the handheld. I can't wait to start playing it. 
Demon Attack (AVCS) - Imagic's Cosmic Ark impressed me so why not try another Imagic game. Got it for a buck. 
Meta Knight amiibo figure - I've always wanted this. I saw it loose for $15 and grabbed it. I love all the Kirby character designs. I have King Dedede and Kirby. I'll have to see what others I don't have. 

TV (during game breaks on game days)

I returned to Star Fleet episodes. This was a show aired in the UK called X-Bomber in Japan. It's a marrionette based scifi show like Thunderbirds with loads of practical effects with real models and sets. The whole series is on youtube as well. I'm at episode 14 so far. The story's not bad but I'm mainly in it for the set designs and effects. The theme song is by Queen's Brian May even though he uses a psuedonym in the credits. It's a good theme.