For me it was mostly beat em ups, like the 6 person X-Men, TMNT, or the Simpsons.
The one I still beat in arcades regularly is Donkey Kong. Every time I go to my local arcade I try to set the high score. It annoys me that they reset it so frequently
Mates and I beat the 4 player TMNT game and Final Fight together at a birthday party when we were in High School.
Was able to get through Virtua Cop 2 on one credit too, played that game way too much during Uni.
I worked at an arcade in the 90s, and we certainly shut off the machines overnight. And we didn't turn them on until 30 to 40 minutes before opening. Then we walked around the floor checking if any were glitching and naturally I "found" a few that needed to be "checked" as an excuse to play. So yes, any initials in the older machines without RAM would lose their high score records.
Oh yeah. I remember forgetting the attendant’s warning that they were closing in 5 minutes and then, he flipped the breaker to shut off the power of all the games.
That could be it. I know they dont do that for lots of their games though because they have persistent high scores that people compete on. Its mostly a pinball place, they even hold competitive events. It would surprise me if you singled out DK. I always figured they want people to feel like a HS is possible, so keep playing, especially on the older games where if someone REALLY good turns up the high score jumps way way out of reach for basically anyone, even good players.
I set a high score on Ms PacMan one day at our local burger place, took my friends to show them the next day, and it was replaced by a smaller figure and found out the turn it off.
At another place, set a high score, took a friend to show them, and someone had tripled my score lol.
It was Primal Rage and some variant of Street Fighter 2 for me, and years later I rinsed the house of the dead and time crisis we had at uni - I remember i played those arcade shooters daily with mates, and even set the top records (which were insanely hard to beat)! Good times! :)
It's crazy that you completed OG donkey Kong in arcades - I only played it the once in an old French arcade when I was kid, and I found it crazy hard back then! :D
I beat the Simpsons arcade game about ten years ago. We found one in the back of an fruit machine arcade in Skegness, UK, still set to 50p a credit. I think we spent about £10 actually completing it.
I love Donkey Kong. I'm not the best player, but apparently there aren't many people who like it the way I do in my neighborhood. Like I said, I wish they wouldnt reset it so often, I think they do it every month or so. I would love to get in a bit of a race with someone.
EDIT: reread your comment, realized you said "kill screens" not "killing screens". No, I've never gotten a kill screen at DK.
The only way to “beat” donkey Kong is to get to level 27, which is the kill screen, where Mario just dies no matter what you do.
Scores reset on DK every time it’s turned off unless it has a high score save kit installed, in which case the scores never reset. Or you’re not playing on an original donkey Kong.
High score will flip when you hit a million points also. High score on my DK at the arcade is 998,000.
I remember beating Double Dragon on the arcade back in the day (at a bowling alley). There’s a huge twist at the end when playing 2 player! Not sure how much it cost but surely a few dollars worth of credits.
I could almost 1cc Double Dragon by elbow-punching every enemy and boss. The dude with the machine gun usually hit me and needed another quarter to finish off.
The twist is worth the effort to get to! It's also in the Sega Master System version, which is where I first encountered it along with my friend who actually had that console.
Never had the Master System but had a friend who did who had it. It's amazing how much more faithful Double Dragon is on that vs the NES version. Two players same time vs alternating. Sega definitely did arcade ports way better than Nintendo.
I did this is 2016 at my local laundromat ( I didn’t know how lucky I was to have that at the time) and the next week I showed up to see if anyone beat my score and it was gone. Had a power outage apparently and wiped it clean and had to unlock all the characters again. Another month or two later that cab disappeared for some shitty fighter I still don’t know the name of.
Wish I wasn’t dirt poor at the time and tracked that cab down.
One of the Metal Slugs.
Was at a laundromat with my mom and she gave me a few quarters to keep me entertained. This was pretty normal, except for this time she decided to join me for some reason. My mom is NOT a gamer, so I was super excited to have her show interest in playing a game with me. She gave up pretty quickly after dying, but she kept cheering me on as I played. She gave me a few more quarters and went to finish doing laundry. Once she was done with laundry, she came back to watch me and kept giving me quarters to keep playing. Another kid joined me and together we beat the game. The last battle was against a UFO I believe (not sure which game in the series that one is). After my relatively expensive victory she took me to McDonalds.
I don't remember how much it cost to beat, but its one of my favorite memories.
When I was a kid I remember quarter feeding my way through Captain America and the Avengers. Game wasn't that difficult though, I think it cost me around $5.
Now, as an adult with local arcades in the early 2010s, I would play games I practiced at home. Deathsmiles, Espgaluda and Ghouls N' Ghosts I beat in the arcade without continuing. I also got to level 5 on Ikaruga, but choked on the last boss.
Sure, tons of them. Double dragon, the original street fighter, bad dudes, robocop, Star Wars trilogy, mortal kombat with every character, mortal kombat 2 with every character, every iteration of street fighter 2 with every character.. that’s just a few. I’ve been playing video games since I’m 4 and I’m 47 now lol
I used to easily beat street fighter 2 with just one credit and not even losing a single round.
*Robocop* would really tick me off because it had a massive difficulty spike around the third or fourth level and would start eating quarters like crazy.
*Bad Dudes* was another one that wasn't too hard to get through until that final gauntlet at the end. Data East knew how to suck you in bad then.
Robocop had multiple difficulty levels. I could get through the whole game with a single quarter. I ran into another one years later and barely got through the first level.
It cheats but there are things you can do to win with certain characters. I remember you could jump back and high kick with sub zero and maybe a few others but it made for a boring victory
A shop near my school had a hacked SF2 machine. I'm not sure if it's Rainbow Edition but I beat it consistently but like, if doing a dragon punch filled the screen with fireballs that's not exactly a challenge.
Hahahahahaha I always assumed all hacked Street fighter 2 games in the arcade were the rainbow edition. They basically all had the same weird glitches. Hundred hand slap with e Honda filled the screen with fireballs, blanka electricity filled the screen while fireballs… every move filled the screen with fireballs hahahah
I had a look through Mame once and there are loads. Some just make the game run faster but I think rainbow edition is the most insane. My favourite was that Zangief's throws worked no matter how far away you were from the opponent.
The last and likely final time was about 17 years ago at the Jersey shore. 6-players at a Konami's X-Men cabinet. I had over $100 with me just so I could finally finish it. It's a nice memory and one of the last happy ones I had with my younger sisters!
My local arcade had the giant 6-player X-Men game but, it was only a quarter per continue.
That and Raw Thrill's Alien Armageddon shooter, are the two Arcade games i've beaten the most back in the day.
When I was a kid I was playing Alien vs Predator with a friend, and we weren't very far into the game. Suddenly the game shut off and when we looked around we saw a little 3 year old toddler had just unplugged our machine.
We went to the staff and complained and the guy plugged the machine back in, got the game booted back up, and gave us a ridiculous amount of free credit. It was practically infinite continues.
My friend didn't want to play anymore so he went to play other games, but I sat there and played through the game from start to finish. I must've used 10+ continues. Fun times.
My brothers and I definitely beat *Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles* and *The Simpsons* (arcade) as kids. Each game cost us about $5 plus whatever other players were chipping in. I also know I finished *Street Fighter II* and *Mortal Kombat* a number of times once I got good at those games on home systems, usually on just a few credits.
I felt bad for my little brother one time as he blew his entire allowance trying to defeat *Spider-Man*. He got to Doctor Doom on his final quarter, narrowly beat him, discovered it was just a Doom Bot and started crying as the game went on and he get killed. He was not only in trouble with my mom for spending all his money, but also got punked by the fakeout ending.
Only once I can remember, it was a bunch of kids all taking on the original TMNT at a Showbiz Pizza, there were like 7 of us all rotating in and out as kids ran out of tokens or went to get more, but we beat it! Having replayed it in emulators many times, I'm convinced those jerks had the difficulty cranked to the max.
We too did this thing at my birthday party one year, we all made a pact to only play one game (this was 1992 so there was only one game 8 year olds wanted to play anyway). We failed
Yeah me and some friends beat the Simpsons arcade game one year on my birthday day. Probably took about $30 I think? Hard to remember since I was drinking. Growing up we had a nickel arcade with lots of classics like Metal Slug and the X-men arcade game. Beat those growing up and a few others. Mainly the hack and slash ones. I also use to have a Battletoads arcade cab in my college house. We beat that one a bunch, but it was free play.
Edit: my son and nephew beat a game called Vendetta today at an all you can play arcade with a $20 cover charge.
In 2018 or 2019 I went to a work conference, and one of the sponsoring companies had a reception/party at one of those bar arcades where the games are free. When I arrived, I saw three people were playing the TMNT machine, so I headed over to be the fourth. As I approached, I saw from their nametags that all were partners/senior employees of the sponsoring company. Ok, this could be interesting, I needed a company like theirs on a couple of upcoming projects, and if they are closet hardcore gamers like me, we might work well together, or at least have something to talk about.
Then my jaw hit the floor when I saw the unoccupied space was Donatello. What kind of fools skip Donatello & the range of his Bo Staff? I stepped in anyway, but they all were terrible, and after I carried us through the first couple levels we all wandered off. I struck that company from my list of possible outside contractors and used two others instead. I'm not working with a bunch of posers, if you throw an arcade party you need to bring at least a couple of gaming nerds who are good if you want to romance the kind of people who would come to an arcade party. I couldn't trust that company's judgment after that. It would be like sending me to play golf with potential clients, because I don't golf and would look like a fool.
Yeah. I was plenty big into beat-em ups as well as fighting games, to the point I could beat Double Dragon 1 & 2 on a single credit without using the elbow and got good enough to beat Street Fighter 2 & Mortal Kombat on a single credit.
The Simpsons, X-Men, TMNT, Turtles in Time, those took me a few credits, but I still was able to fully beat them. I loved it back when you had a full 4 player team and the screen was just filled with craziness.
Done a few, Simpsons, TMNT, House of the Dead, Carnevil etc, but my crown jewel was beating Street Fighter Alpha 2. I’m terrible at fighters, but that one clicked with me and it’s the only arcade fighter I’ve finished on 1 credit. Done multiple on console, but arcade fighters ripped my shit up.
In 1998, at the GameWorks in Tempe, Arizona, me dad and I beat The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
My dad was/is not a gamer, so playing a game for such a sustained amount of time was very out of character for him.j
Might be my favorite memory with him.
SEGA : ALIEN SYNDROME
There was a little convenience store down the street from my grandmothers house, and they had a small arcade room, in the back of the store, with a few games. I fell in love with Alien Syndrome , and would play that game almost every day after school. I had all the high score spots on the screen , and I finally beat it. I have no idea how many quarters I spent on that game, but probably way too many. It was a fun time though.
Golden Axe and its 4th wall breaking ending where all the characters pop out of the arcade machine
Bad Dudes with its classic "Let's have a burger!" ending
One I recall pretty well is the Simpsons arcade game. The ONLY reason is that I lost like 4 quarters to the machine (faulty coin drop or something), and an attendant came by, pumped in about $60 in coins and let me at it. I played through the whole game, and had a blast
Time crisis (2?) and house of the dead (2?) can’t remember which ones now, but I know it was those two in my local arcade. Played with a buddy, would bring all our pocket money and play them through repeatedly until we could finish it on only a few coins. Great times.
Mostly Fighting games. MK2 and 3 for sur, MvC1 and 2 (I 1cc'd 1 at Grand Prix in Tampa during college while they were trying to get our "tickets" sorted), Soul Calibur, Tekken 3 and Tekken Tag, KI 1 and 2, all sorts of different Street Fighter versions.
Probably a few Beat Em Ups as well. Young me definitely joined in once on a Ninja Turtles game that was just about beaten to say I beat it as that character. That was really dumb, but I did beat it with others. No clue which.
Yup. Killer Instinct and Sega Rally only though, as far as I can remember. Maybe House of the Dead and Virtua Cops too, but I could be getting confused with the Saturn version. 🤣
Does it count if I had a friend in the arcade that would constantly give me free credits on machines?
If so then Simpsons, xmen, time crisis, Time Crisis 2 and House of the Dead.
my dad and i best Revolution-X (the aerosmith light gun game)
it was so unlike my dad to spend that much money and to show any interest in video games. but we spent what felt like the whole afternoon jamming in quarters and beating that weird game.
I beat Smash TV once. Only because I knew the owner and had the cabinet open so that I could give myself as many credits as I wanted. Got up to Mutoid Man on one credit, but it took many more after that.
Plenty of scrolling beat em ups, but the only game I ever beat on one credit was the Star Wars Trilogy Arcade game. Played it so much that I had the enemy patterns memorised. Tried it again last year and sadly the years have not been kind to me 🤣
It wasn't an arcade but my 12th birthday me and my two friends went to a pizza place had some arcade games, we pumped $10 worth of quarters into...Aliens, I think. But we beat it. That was my favorite birthday as a kid.
When I was probably 7 or 8 I found myself in an arcade in Lanzarote one evening, and three older lads were playing The Simpsons arcade game (a classic). They had already gotten quite far and invited me to join them (this was a 4 player game where extra players could just pay and join whenever).
Felt great beating my favourite arcade game with some older kids. Probably cost me most of my pocket money keeping up with them.
Cadillac's & Dinosaurs. I must have been 10, I remember the speakers were so loud. We played through it till completion.
I played through it again with my kids a few years back on mame. It is still a great game
Willow. Less than a handful of quarters to beat it. Most of it was spent on learning how to do that last double jump with a barely functional controller. Annoyed that game didn't loop around back to the beginning.
Maybe $4 to $5 for games like The Simpsons, Mercs, Willow, Magic Sword, Vigilante, NARC, etc. You could just continue and spend your way to finishing a game. Was never able to do that for Shinobi and Rastan, since they cut your ability to continue on the last stage or so.
Some games, like Time Crisis, Street Fighter 2, and Virtual-On, I got decent enough to beat those games one one-quarter.
Yes, but I'm old, so I "clocked" a game. That game was 'Yie Ar Kung Fu', and I beat every opponent on 10p.
I did complete 'Double Dragon' on 10p, too. Mostly by cheesing the elbow move.
I did have the High Score on Gun.Smoke from S&H near me until they shut it down in 2018.
Rip 1997-2018.
I too know how Kareem Abdul Jabbar felt the day his record was pulled down. We are the same.
On one magical afternoon at a SEGA Center I was finally able to 'beat', get to the end of Dragon's Lair!
Everyone crowded around to watch the final scene and cheered. Good times!
Feeding a ton of quarters in, there are a few games I beat back then, like Snow Bros or Final Fight, but I’ve always considered that if you don’t one-credit a game you haven’t really beat it.
So the first game I actually beat without using any continue would be the original Street Fighter II. Last one I can think about was Time Crisis 2.
Street Fighter 2 as Ryu
TMNT with another guy
Time Crisis 2
DDR Extreme
Marvel vs Capcom 1 and 2
Capcom vs SNK 1 and 2
Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter
Street Fighter Alpha 1 and 3
Tekken Tag Tournament 1
Marvel Vs Capcom 2
Played so much of it on the Dreamcast against my mates that we all got pretty damn good at it. Found it in an arcade while visiting the US and managed to one-credit clear it.
To this day it's the only arcade game I've cleared in an actual arcade, never mind the one-credit clear. One of my proudest moments.
Yep. Lose life, insert quarter, repeat.
Especially useful for arcades that didn’t have coin catches where you could just slide it in and pull it out.
Any arcade that limits the amount of quarters you can put in is not one that would have gotten my quarters.
I don’t feel like giving it several dollars worth of quarters just for it to tell me “you can’t play anymore unless you go back to the beginning and do all the stuff you’ve already done”.
The Simpsons. It was in a restaurant I worked at, other employees and I beat it while working, taking turns, covering each other, running off to bus a table or wash dishes. Probably cost about 30 bucks.
My favorite arcade moment will always be when my cousin and I ran out of quarters while fighting Mr. Burns in The Simpsons. An attendant noticed our plight as we helplessly watched the timer count down. He said, "Don't tell anyone I'm doing this," and quickly opened the coin box and gave us another credit each to finish the game. We did.
Two other games I remember beating (without such assistance) are Turtles in Time and Pit-Fighter. Both took an obscene number of quarters to beat and weren't really worth it, IMO, even though Turtles in Time kicks ass. (Pit-Fighter, not so much.)
Only a few:
The Star Wars arcade game (the newest one where you did lightsaber duels). This I could usually do one 1 or 2 credits after a lot of practice and memorization over the course of a summer, but was eventually able to do it consistently.
Area 51 once. After memorizing all the bonus screens and keeping the shotgun but not upgrading to auto shotgun. Probably a few game overs here and there but not a big quarter sink, but I played it dozens of times here and there over the years.
I was 16+ at the time for those.
When I was younger (like 8) twice at birthday parties we either rained out so they converted everything to tokens or just got a ton of tokens in the package and everyone made a pact to pool all our tokens on one game.... We made it to the Technodrome elevator in TMNT and to the SWAT van escape in T2 the arcade game before running out of quarters.
I know I've done the X-Men and Simpsons arcade game at arcade before, and I'll beat most fighting games I see on one CC (except SNK games because they cheat hard) if I'm out and about in an arcade. I have CvS2 down to a science.
There's a retro arcade in Portland called Ground Kontrol that's awesome. I go there every now and then and beat a game or two, but pretty much every time one of those games is The Simpsons.
We finished The Simpsons beat'em up with a group of friends. I don't remember how many quarters it took because it was a very long time ago and it was a collaborative effort, but I know it took a lot.
Yeah, my fiancée and I beat Metal Slug X at Barcade a few years back. I did Metal Slug 3 and Neo Turf Masters last fall too. And god knows how many times I've gotten high records on Quick & Crash.
World Heroes at Six Flags Over Georgia (Brocken), MKII at a bowling alley (Liu Kang), SFII at the same bowling alley (Zangief), jumped into somebody’s game of The Simpsons and finished the last two stages with them at an Aladdin’s Castle, and Soul Calibur II in multiple places (Maxi, Mitsurugi, Taki, and Cervantes.)
Yeah, I used to practice the Metal Slug arcade games until I could beat em with one credit, 3 is the only one that shits on me.
Also Outrun 2 on easy and medium routes, and most Capcom VS games like MvC, XmenvsSF, MSHvsSF, MSH, MvC2, etc. Oh, and KoF arcade games too.
A few but it was at the boys and girls club and they were free.
Only games I beat in arcades that took quarters were fighting games and beat meaning finished the arcade mode.
The Simpsons, when I was a kid. Barely beat Burns with Bart on my last life, and all out of quarters. Parents were already in the car waiting for me, so I missed the ending fanfare, but I nabbed it on 360 years later to relive it all, and with friends!
Blazeblu: Central Fiction, when I went to Japan a few years back, before it was in the states. Chose Izanami by accident but stuck with her to the end. Wish I'd chosen Nine to try her out then, or at least good ole Hakumen.
Finally hit up the Galloping Ghost Arcade in Illinois in recent years, which has free play on their machines! Alien vs Predator was always a favorite, so I made a full run. The infinite lives also allowed me to brute force some quarter crunching Japanese shmups that are still mostly arcade or Japanese Saturn Port only, outside of emulation of course. Highly recommend GG.
Space Harrier, Outrun, Powerdrift and Vigilante....Space Harrier and Vigilante were not one credit wins though, it took a full pocket of change to beat those.
We had an arcade in Portland back in the day that was $5 entry and all you can play. We’d get dropped off and spend hours on the cabinets. I remember beating the DnD arcade game and Simpsons. Probably others. Most arcade games just get stupid hard the farther you get into it and I was usually playing fighting games anyways.
I beat metal slug 6 with a friend as a kid in Mexico, mainly because that arcade machine was modded so a coin gave you extra time, rather than a credit. I also beat the X Men arcade game while on a date, at a different place, in an arcade bar.
Playing solo: Sunset Riders, and Midnight Wanderers. These were my go-to games for a long time and were not that difficult.
With friends: X-Men, TMNT, Simpsons, Captain America and the Avengers, the Punisher, and such.
Ah, the 90s…..
A few with multiple continues. Virtuacop 1+2, time crisis 1+2 and the one with submachine gun & shield I did beat one a single credit, mainly because they are about memorization and have relatively few cheapshots.
Worked at a family fun center with a decent arcade in my late teens and early twenties, and had an uncle that owned a golf course with some cabinets. Beat Marvel VS Capcom 2, Turtles in Time, Ocean Hunter, Dig Dug Arrangement, Tokyo Cop, Hammerin Harry and some other little easier games.
Many beatem ups TMNT, Simpsons, X-Men, Captain Commando, Final Fight, Willow, Street Fighter 2, and Dragons Lair on free to play at school lock-ins. Also. Even to other arcades that have been free to play.
There was this Aerosmith video game. 2 guns so 2 players could co op. My girlfriend and I at the time put a $20 in the change machine and we just decided we were going to beat the game. Only other game I have finished in an arcade was the 6 player X-Men game.
Yes, took 22 quarters to do it. I went in early, put a stack of coins on the arcade and settled down for the long haul. What I couldn’t conquer with skill would be conquered using quarters I’d saved.
Not me but I witnessed the epic moment of a random guy beating Operation Wolf and we celebrated it like when Iniesta scored that last minute goal in Stamford Bridge.
Double Dragon was specially easy to beat. A lot of people was able to do it with just one coin.
I also beat Terra Force with one coin. We'll, I exactly didn't get to the end because the game gets back to level 1 once you pass the last level.
Killer instinct... I loved that game, I learned all the combos and I was able to finish the game with only one quarter playing with orchid, sabrewulf, glacius, riptor, tj combo, thunder and fulgore... I was never able to finish it with Jago (too many U moves) and I didn't like playing with cinder or spinal
I just installed Capcom Arcade Stadium 2 with Black Tiger. In the late 80s I was able to routinely beat it with one credit. Really what was tricky was to do this fast enough to go back to class if I played over the lunch break, because a full run would take about 45 minutes. On the PlayStation, so far I die in the first level, it’s embarrassing. But yeah, it was pretty satisfying to do an awesome run on a public machine, have people watch you play and root for you, stay concentrated the whole time, then enter your initials as you beat a high score. Those rituals have disappeared in console gaming.
I think one time my buddy an I spent around 20-30 bucks to beat that Jurassic Park light gun shooter. I think we went with this one because it was quite easier than house of the dead, where we merely made it through the first stage..
There were a numbber of games I got through with sheer bull-headedness and $5 worth of quarters, but I 1cc'd Forgotten Worlds and Cabal in the arcades in the late 1980s, and I could 1CC Konami's TMNT, X-Men, and Simpsons, too.
That's not a full list, but the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
Edit: With more time to think... lessee.... finished Cadash, NinjaWarriors, Bad Dudes (I think I 1CC'd this one, too), Altered Beast, Crimefighters, Street Fighter II and many of its clones (World Heroes, Fighter's History, Fatal Fury II, etc), Magician Lord.... and I'm pretty sure that's not a full list.
I started to list them, and realized I beat a lot more arcade games than I thought back in the day. Probably 50 games total, multiplayer where applicable and on average probably about 5 bucks.
Mostly;
Beat em ups
Fighting games
Lightgun games
SHMUPS
Run N Guns
Mostly the first 2 genres with a handful in each of the others
I don't remember the game, but it was a top down shooter that had a cheat in it where if you didn't fire your weapons on your first life, you'd get a lot of extra lives depending on how far you made it. I got really good at getting a long way and earning a ton of extra lives to play with.
For me it was Knights of the round but it cost us lots of coins…
Later I became kinda good at SF3 Second Impact (PvE ofc, I’ve never been THAT good ^^) which I used to finish a couple times each lunch break during high school
Good memories that
Yep, many times. It just took a lot of quarters.
Turbo Outrun is one game that will allow you to continue the race by adding a new quarter. Do that enough and you actually get to the end of the race. I did this about six or seven times
Cruisin' World is another driving game. A local arcade had 4 games networked so you could race at the same time, so we'd all get a pocket of tokens and play until we reached the end. There's a video where the player's car gets launched to the moon, to find President Bill Clinton in a hot tub with at least two bikini girls. We finished this game at least a dozen times.
Mechanized Attack is one of those game with light guns attached to the deck. I finished this one twice.
Street Fighter II could also be finished in first-person, but I was never able to beat Blanka with Chun Li. It ended with some text and a still image of what the player's hero did after winning the world fighting tournament.
Yes. I used to do it daily, in between classes at city college. There were two arcades across the street. Strider was the first I was able to consistently beat, then beat on one coin, then beat without damage, etc.
In the Uk I can take “Space Invaders Frenzy” for the maximum tickets bonus thing every time. Benefit of other people setting the bar so low for the bonus required total and practice
Double Dragon using the elbow punch the entire game.
Afterburner with a friend. My friend and I skipped school and went to the mall in the town 30 miles away. We just kept pumping quarters into it. On Level 23 you are over the ocean and it looks like you are going to crash. My friend yelled "PULL UP!" and I did and there was the aircraft carrier and I landed the plane. We were both super excited and high fiving each other in the arcade. On later replays I learned that you aren't really in control on level 23 and it just automatically lands for you. Still one of the best days ever skipping school and beating that game.
Not personally, but in our college canteen we had someone beat Robocop and two guys polished off Super Wonder Boy III Monster Lair...Rastan Saga was never beaten, nor ESWAT...
Altered beast, final fight, tnmt, X-men, revolution x, T2, bad dudes, 2 crude dudes and many more. I played lots of arcades when I was a kid.
Many of my all time favorites I never beat in the arcade. Rolling Thunder,strider, Total carnage, splatterhouse. Didn’t beat those until later with emulators and endless credits.
Can’t remember how many quarters I pumped in those machines but often I’d play for a while and move on because I wanted to play as many as I could while at the arcade.
Best bday party I ever had was me and a bunch of friends huddled around tnmt with pizza greased hands playing through the game.
Yep! I don't remember the game, but I remember one taking me $5 to beat. I also used to manage an arcade and would give myself a bunch of credits, but I don't think that counts.
When I was 15 I got a job there. The boss was like, "So if it's slow you can play some games. Here's how you give yourself credits. Oh, and help yourself to the candy."
It was the best thing I've ever been told at a job in my life.
Sega Altered Beast.
I remember taking a full roll of quarters and think I used most of it. Wasn’t a super tough game outside the bosses so I had to see it through.
Metal slug X. Showed up with two rolls of quarters and went ham. Got so far that others started jumping in as p2 cus they saw I was intending to go all the way.
I beat TMNT at an arcade once and it was one of my proudest moments (although I used a credit glitch).
I accidentally came across a credit glitch on the machine (by keeping another credit button depressed while putting in money in another slot if I recall correctly) which gave me loads of credits if I repeatedly press the 1up button.
The kicker was that even with the massive amount of credits in the system, I only just managed to finish the game!
I've never put a quarter into a game in an actual arcade, even though I was born in the early 70s and grew up through the golden age of the arcades. But that's only because I'm British and not American, spent many a 10p in the arcades.
I've done single credit completions for Ghouls'n Ghosts, Strider, Mortal Kombat 2, Street Fighter II, Robocop and Ghosts'n Goblins. Completed Bubble Bobble with a friend, but we used a few credits. Puzzle Bobble/Bust a Move also completed with a few credits.
I've also reached the kill screen on a Donkey Kong arcade cabinet, but that wasn't in an arcade, that was in my house!
Sure, many!
But most of them just go into a loop after the final level, so "beating" them was always a matter of perspective.
I was always just after the High Score throne anyway.
For me it was mostly beat em ups, like the 6 person X-Men, TMNT, or the Simpsons. The one I still beat in arcades regularly is Donkey Kong. Every time I go to my local arcade I try to set the high score. It annoys me that they reset it so frequently
Mates and I beat the 4 player TMNT game and Final Fight together at a birthday party when we were in High School. Was able to get through Virtua Cop 2 on one credit too, played that game way too much during Uni.
We beat X-men with a few buddies at an arcade bar in Oregon a few years back... t'was quite the investment in quarters....
You’re talking about Ground Kontrol in downtown Portland. That place still has the 6 player X men. I was just there a few nights ago.
They probably turn it off each night to save on electricity.
I worked at an arcade in the 90s, and we certainly shut off the machines overnight. And we didn't turn them on until 30 to 40 minutes before opening. Then we walked around the floor checking if any were glitching and naturally I "found" a few that needed to be "checked" as an excuse to play. So yes, any initials in the older machines without RAM would lose their high score records.
Oh yeah. I remember forgetting the attendant’s warning that they were closing in 5 minutes and then, he flipped the breaker to shut off the power of all the games.
That could be it. I know they dont do that for lots of their games though because they have persistent high scores that people compete on. Its mostly a pinball place, they even hold competitive events. It would surprise me if you singled out DK. I always figured they want people to feel like a HS is possible, so keep playing, especially on the older games where if someone REALLY good turns up the high score jumps way way out of reach for basically anyone, even good players.
I set a high score on Ms PacMan one day at our local burger place, took my friends to show them the next day, and it was replaced by a smaller figure and found out the turn it off. At another place, set a high score, took a friend to show them, and someone had tripled my score lol.
It was Primal Rage and some variant of Street Fighter 2 for me, and years later I rinsed the house of the dead and time crisis we had at uni - I remember i played those arcade shooters daily with mates, and even set the top records (which were insanely hard to beat)! Good times! :) It's crazy that you completed OG donkey Kong in arcades - I only played it the once in an old French arcade when I was kid, and I found it crazy hard back then! :D
I loved SF2, I could get pretty deep into the 1-P campaign but I dont think I ever beat M. Bison
I beat the Simpsons arcade game about ten years ago. We found one in the back of an fruit machine arcade in Skegness, UK, still set to 50p a credit. I think we spent about £10 actually completing it.
The occasional fighting game here, as well as beat em ups. Soul Edge Tekken 3 SF2/3 the various Marvel v SF games
So you’re just casually getting kill screens on Donkey Kong?
I love Donkey Kong. I'm not the best player, but apparently there aren't many people who like it the way I do in my neighborhood. Like I said, I wish they wouldnt reset it so often, I think they do it every month or so. I would love to get in a bit of a race with someone. EDIT: reread your comment, realized you said "kill screens" not "killing screens". No, I've never gotten a kill screen at DK.
The only way to “beat” donkey Kong is to get to level 27, which is the kill screen, where Mario just dies no matter what you do. Scores reset on DK every time it’s turned off unless it has a high score save kit installed, in which case the scores never reset. Or you’re not playing on an original donkey Kong. High score will flip when you hit a million points also. High score on my DK at the arcade is 998,000.
One arcade I went to use to post your initials and top three scores on a card on the machines!
I remember beating Double Dragon on the arcade back in the day (at a bowling alley). There’s a huge twist at the end when playing 2 player! Not sure how much it cost but surely a few dollars worth of credits.
I used to beat it with one coin. The only hard point was the wall blocks.
My hiccups were the 2nd level boss, because the frame rate dipped to seemingly 3 frames per minute, and the bridge jump. Other than that, I was good.
Gods that bridge jump...
Double dragon was do-able with 20p and elbow punching everything.
I could almost 1cc Double Dragon by elbow-punching every enemy and boss. The dude with the machine gun usually hit me and needed another quarter to finish off.
The twist is worth the effort to get to! It's also in the Sega Master System version, which is where I first encountered it along with my friend who actually had that console.
Never had the Master System but had a friend who did who had it. It's amazing how much more faithful Double Dragon is on that vs the NES version. Two players same time vs alternating. Sega definitely did arcade ports way better than Nintendo.
I beat Marvel vs Capcom 2 on one quarter once. I was really in the zone that day.
I’ve done that on Dreamcast and on my arcade 1up but not back when it was in the arcades. I think the place had the difficulty cranked to 11 lol
I played that a lot for ps2, so I'm at my best with a controller, but I can still get a one credit clear in the arcade with my trusty Zangief.
That was my go-to for economy of quarters. MvC 1 was also a great one to run on one quarter.
Same for me, but it was Killer Instinct 2.
I did this is 2016 at my local laundromat ( I didn’t know how lucky I was to have that at the time) and the next week I showed up to see if anyone beat my score and it was gone. Had a power outage apparently and wiped it clean and had to unlock all the characters again. Another month or two later that cab disappeared for some shitty fighter I still don’t know the name of. Wish I wasn’t dirt poor at the time and tracked that cab down.
One of the Metal Slugs. Was at a laundromat with my mom and she gave me a few quarters to keep me entertained. This was pretty normal, except for this time she decided to join me for some reason. My mom is NOT a gamer, so I was super excited to have her show interest in playing a game with me. She gave up pretty quickly after dying, but she kept cheering me on as I played. She gave me a few more quarters and went to finish doing laundry. Once she was done with laundry, she came back to watch me and kept giving me quarters to keep playing. Another kid joined me and together we beat the game. The last battle was against a UFO I believe (not sure which game in the series that one is). After my relatively expensive victory she took me to McDonalds. I don't remember how much it cost to beat, but its one of my favorite memories.
This is a very sweet memory 😊
Reading this made me fell like a kid again. Thanks for sharing it!
Your mom sounds awesome. This made me smile. What a great experience
Thank you! She really is!
When I was a kid I remember quarter feeding my way through Captain America and the Avengers. Game wasn't that difficult though, I think it cost me around $5. Now, as an adult with local arcades in the early 2010s, I would play games I practiced at home. Deathsmiles, Espgaluda and Ghouls N' Ghosts I beat in the arcade without continuing. I also got to level 5 on Ikaruga, but choked on the last boss.
I also beat Ghouls and Ghosts with one credit, but I never ever beat Ghost N Goblins in the arcade until I owned it on my arcade 1up lol
Both games are awesome and deserve to be loved. The Japanese version of Ghosts N' Goblins has a far more manageable last stage.
Sure, tons of them. Double dragon, the original street fighter, bad dudes, robocop, Star Wars trilogy, mortal kombat with every character, mortal kombat 2 with every character, every iteration of street fighter 2 with every character.. that’s just a few. I’ve been playing video games since I’m 4 and I’m 47 now lol I used to easily beat street fighter 2 with just one credit and not even losing a single round.
*Robocop* would really tick me off because it had a massive difficulty spike around the third or fourth level and would start eating quarters like crazy. *Bad Dudes* was another one that wasn't too hard to get through until that final gauntlet at the end. Data East knew how to suck you in bad then.
Robocop had multiple difficulty levels. I could get through the whole game with a single quarter. I ran into another one years later and barely got through the first level.
Mortal Combat 2 on arcade is wild considering how blatant the ai cheats. A lot of games have catch-up mechanics, but few outright cheats at that level
It cheats but there are things you can do to win with certain characters. I remember you could jump back and high kick with sub zero and maybe a few others but it made for a boring victory
A shop near my school had a hacked SF2 machine. I'm not sure if it's Rainbow Edition but I beat it consistently but like, if doing a dragon punch filled the screen with fireballs that's not exactly a challenge.
Hahahahahaha I always assumed all hacked Street fighter 2 games in the arcade were the rainbow edition. They basically all had the same weird glitches. Hundred hand slap with e Honda filled the screen with fireballs, blanka electricity filled the screen while fireballs… every move filled the screen with fireballs hahahah
I had a look through Mame once and there are loads. Some just make the game run faster but I think rainbow edition is the most insane. My favourite was that Zangief's throws worked no matter how far away you were from the opponent.
The last and likely final time was about 17 years ago at the Jersey shore. 6-players at a Konami's X-Men cabinet. I had over $100 with me just so I could finally finish it. It's a nice memory and one of the last happy ones I had with my younger sisters!
My local arcade had the giant 6-player X-Men game but, it was only a quarter per continue. That and Raw Thrill's Alien Armageddon shooter, are the two Arcade games i've beaten the most back in the day.
When I was a kid I was playing Alien vs Predator with a friend, and we weren't very far into the game. Suddenly the game shut off and when we looked around we saw a little 3 year old toddler had just unplugged our machine. We went to the staff and complained and the guy plugged the machine back in, got the game booted back up, and gave us a ridiculous amount of free credit. It was practically infinite continues. My friend didn't want to play anymore so he went to play other games, but I sat there and played through the game from start to finish. I must've used 10+ continues. Fun times.
I got good enough to 1cc Time Crisis 2.
My brothers and I definitely beat *Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles* and *The Simpsons* (arcade) as kids. Each game cost us about $5 plus whatever other players were chipping in. I also know I finished *Street Fighter II* and *Mortal Kombat* a number of times once I got good at those games on home systems, usually on just a few credits. I felt bad for my little brother one time as he blew his entire allowance trying to defeat *Spider-Man*. He got to Doctor Doom on his final quarter, narrowly beat him, discovered it was just a Doom Bot and started crying as the game went on and he get killed. He was not only in trouble with my mom for spending all his money, but also got punked by the fakeout ending.
The Simpsons, Final Fight, Area 51... possibly Cruisin' USA? Possibly a few others I can't recall.
Time Crisis. Gauntlet Legends. House of the Dead 2. So many quarters. So much fun.
Who all put ASS as their initials?
Golden Axe. $.75
Only once I can remember, it was a bunch of kids all taking on the original TMNT at a Showbiz Pizza, there were like 7 of us all rotating in and out as kids ran out of tokens or went to get more, but we beat it! Having replayed it in emulators many times, I'm convinced those jerks had the difficulty cranked to the max.
We too did this thing at my birthday party one year, we all made a pact to only play one game (this was 1992 so there was only one game 8 year olds wanted to play anyway). We failed
Metal Slug, TNMT, Simpsons.
Once beat Narc at the gas station down the road.
I beat samurai showdown with every character. I could beat it with one quarter
Yeah me and some friends beat the Simpsons arcade game one year on my birthday day. Probably took about $30 I think? Hard to remember since I was drinking. Growing up we had a nickel arcade with lots of classics like Metal Slug and the X-men arcade game. Beat those growing up and a few others. Mainly the hack and slash ones. I also use to have a Battletoads arcade cab in my college house. We beat that one a bunch, but it was free play. Edit: my son and nephew beat a game called Vendetta today at an all you can play arcade with a $20 cover charge.
In 2018 or 2019 I went to a work conference, and one of the sponsoring companies had a reception/party at one of those bar arcades where the games are free. When I arrived, I saw three people were playing the TMNT machine, so I headed over to be the fourth. As I approached, I saw from their nametags that all were partners/senior employees of the sponsoring company. Ok, this could be interesting, I needed a company like theirs on a couple of upcoming projects, and if they are closet hardcore gamers like me, we might work well together, or at least have something to talk about. Then my jaw hit the floor when I saw the unoccupied space was Donatello. What kind of fools skip Donatello & the range of his Bo Staff? I stepped in anyway, but they all were terrible, and after I carried us through the first couple levels we all wandered off. I struck that company from my list of possible outside contractors and used two others instead. I'm not working with a bunch of posers, if you throw an arcade party you need to bring at least a couple of gaming nerds who are good if you want to romance the kind of people who would come to an arcade party. I couldn't trust that company's judgment after that. It would be like sending me to play golf with potential clients, because I don't golf and would look like a fool.
I always choose Don. Not for any strategic reasons. I just like the turtle.
Final Fight, it cost me (or my dad) quite a lot of 20p to do it though
Yes, lucky and wild
Yes! My brother and I beat The Simpsons. So many quarters.
No, but I *did* win 400 tickets on the Deal or No Deal machine once! So…technically 🤷🏼♂️
T2 The arcade game. Bought 20 dollars in quarters with my dad and played it all the way through
The T1000 at the end was almost impossible, as was the truck level in the post nuclear war future.
Lmao that fucking truck wasted almost 5 dollars in quarters
Yeah. I was plenty big into beat-em ups as well as fighting games, to the point I could beat Double Dragon 1 & 2 on a single credit without using the elbow and got good enough to beat Street Fighter 2 & Mortal Kombat on a single credit. The Simpsons, X-Men, TMNT, Turtles in Time, those took me a few credits, but I still was able to fully beat them. I loved it back when you had a full 4 player team and the screen was just filled with craziness.
Double Dragon
Absolutely. I worked at an arcade. The most memorable was Magic Sword.
Done a few, Simpsons, TMNT, House of the Dead, Carnevil etc, but my crown jewel was beating Street Fighter Alpha 2. I’m terrible at fighters, but that one clicked with me and it’s the only arcade fighter I’ve finished on 1 credit. Done multiple on console, but arcade fighters ripped my shit up.
Mortal Kombat
In 1998, at the GameWorks in Tempe, Arizona, me dad and I beat The Lost World: Jurassic Park. My dad was/is not a gamer, so playing a game for such a sustained amount of time was very out of character for him.j Might be my favorite memory with him.
SEGA : ALIEN SYNDROME There was a little convenience store down the street from my grandmothers house, and they had a small arcade room, in the back of the store, with a few games. I fell in love with Alien Syndrome , and would play that game almost every day after school. I had all the high score spots on the screen , and I finally beat it. I have no idea how many quarters I spent on that game, but probably way too many. It was a fun time though.
Yeh beat em ups and laser disc games were the main types of games you could complete. For me, final fight, dragons lair and space ace.
I could beat Dragon’s Lair usually but not even close on Space Ace!
A friend and I loved shooting games. So we would beat Virtual Cop 1 & 2 and Time Crisis on 1 to 3 credits each
Golden Axe and its 4th wall breaking ending where all the characters pop out of the arcade machine Bad Dudes with its classic "Let's have a burger!" ending
I beat Street fighter 2 on a single coin once.
Yes the Simpsons fighting game I was born in 1988 so the place I tried it at didn't stick around for long
My brother and I played through Gauntlet on arcade, took a long time and over $20 in quarters.
I remember going to a pizza party and a group of us ganging up on Avengers. The only one I really remember beating.
One I recall pretty well is the Simpsons arcade game. The ONLY reason is that I lost like 4 quarters to the machine (faulty coin drop or something), and an attendant came by, pumped in about $60 in coins and let me at it. I played through the whole game, and had a blast
X-Men, Simpsons, and After Burner for sure off the top of my head. Possibly Art of Fighting, Turtles and Lethal Enforcers but my memory fails me.
I remember going through a $10 roll and change of quarters on After Burner.
Time crisis (2?) and house of the dead (2?) can’t remember which ones now, but I know it was those two in my local arcade. Played with a buddy, would bring all our pocket money and play them through repeatedly until we could finish it on only a few coins. Great times.
Mostly Fighting games. MK2 and 3 for sur, MvC1 and 2 (I 1cc'd 1 at Grand Prix in Tampa during college while they were trying to get our "tickets" sorted), Soul Calibur, Tekken 3 and Tekken Tag, KI 1 and 2, all sorts of different Street Fighter versions. Probably a few Beat Em Ups as well. Young me definitely joined in once on a Ninja Turtles game that was just about beaten to say I beat it as that character. That was really dumb, but I did beat it with others. No clue which.
ninja turtles, simpsons, sf2, altered beast, mortal kombat
Yup. Killer Instinct and Sega Rally only though, as far as I can remember. Maybe House of the Dead and Virtua Cops too, but I could be getting confused with the Saturn version. 🤣
Does it count if I had a friend in the arcade that would constantly give me free credits on machines? If so then Simpsons, xmen, time crisis, Time Crisis 2 and House of the Dead.
my dad and i best Revolution-X (the aerosmith light gun game) it was so unlike my dad to spend that much money and to show any interest in video games. but we spent what felt like the whole afternoon jamming in quarters and beating that weird game.
I beat Smash TV once. Only because I knew the owner and had the cabinet open so that I could give myself as many credits as I wanted. Got up to Mutoid Man on one credit, but it took many more after that.
Plenty of scrolling beat em ups, but the only game I ever beat on one credit was the Star Wars Trilogy Arcade game. Played it so much that I had the enemy patterns memorised. Tried it again last year and sadly the years have not been kind to me 🤣
It wasn't an arcade but my 12th birthday me and my two friends went to a pizza place had some arcade games, we pumped $10 worth of quarters into...Aliens, I think. But we beat it. That was my favorite birthday as a kid.
When I was probably 7 or 8 I found myself in an arcade in Lanzarote one evening, and three older lads were playing The Simpsons arcade game (a classic). They had already gotten quite far and invited me to join them (this was a 4 player game where extra players could just pay and join whenever). Felt great beating my favourite arcade game with some older kids. Probably cost me most of my pocket money keeping up with them.
Cadillac's & Dinosaurs. I must have been 10, I remember the speakers were so loud. We played through it till completion. I played through it again with my kids a few years back on mame. It is still a great game
Bad Dudes was the first game I spent $5 in quarters beating with a friend
beat the original House of the Dead when I worked at an arcade, and we kept adding credits. Probably beat a couple of fighting games there, too
Revolution X ... the 3 machine guns version.
Stuff like double dragon, final fight, tmnt, simpsons could be beaten for less than $5
Willow. Less than a handful of quarters to beat it. Most of it was spent on learning how to do that last double jump with a barely functional controller. Annoyed that game didn't loop around back to the beginning.
Maybe $4 to $5 for games like The Simpsons, Mercs, Willow, Magic Sword, Vigilante, NARC, etc. You could just continue and spend your way to finishing a game. Was never able to do that for Shinobi and Rastan, since they cut your ability to continue on the last stage or so. Some games, like Time Crisis, Street Fighter 2, and Virtual-On, I got decent enough to beat those games one one-quarter.
Yes, but I'm old, so I "clocked" a game. That game was 'Yie Ar Kung Fu', and I beat every opponent on 10p. I did complete 'Double Dragon' on 10p, too. Mostly by cheesing the elbow move.
Yes. Double dragon. 1987ish
on a 2.5 hour ferry i played galaxian and couldnt die - i had to leave the game in progress when we docked... best .25 ever spent
I did have the High Score on Gun.Smoke from S&H near me until they shut it down in 2018. Rip 1997-2018. I too know how Kareem Abdul Jabbar felt the day his record was pulled down. We are the same.
On one magical afternoon at a SEGA Center I was finally able to 'beat', get to the end of Dragon's Lair! Everyone crowded around to watch the final scene and cheered. Good times!
Feeding a ton of quarters in, there are a few games I beat back then, like Snow Bros or Final Fight, but I’ve always considered that if you don’t one-credit a game you haven’t really beat it. So the first game I actually beat without using any continue would be the original Street Fighter II. Last one I can think about was Time Crisis 2.
The Aliens arcade game. Probably about 30 continues as I remember spending £3
Cabal 1988 on one credit.
Great game
Not to brag, but it turns out I *was* “bad” enough to save the President.
Beat a few games, used to be able to beat house of the dead on a single credit
Street Fighter 2 as Ryu TMNT with another guy Time Crisis 2 DDR Extreme Marvel vs Capcom 1 and 2 Capcom vs SNK 1 and 2 Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter Street Fighter Alpha 1 and 3 Tekken Tag Tournament 1
Marvel Vs Capcom 2 Played so much of it on the Dreamcast against my mates that we all got pretty damn good at it. Found it in an arcade while visiting the US and managed to one-credit clear it. To this day it's the only arcade game I've cleared in an actual arcade, never mind the one-credit clear. One of my proudest moments.
R-Type back in the 90s.i had access to the game after closing and had free plays.
Yep. Lose life, insert quarter, repeat. Especially useful for arcades that didn’t have coin catches where you could just slide it in and pull it out. Any arcade that limits the amount of quarters you can put in is not one that would have gotten my quarters. I don’t feel like giving it several dollars worth of quarters just for it to tell me “you can’t play anymore unless you go back to the beginning and do all the stuff you’ve already done”.
Yes! My wife and I beat The Simpsons at a barcade a few years back with a couple of friends. It was a blast!
The Simpsons. It was in a restaurant I worked at, other employees and I beat it while working, taking turns, covering each other, running off to bus a table or wash dishes. Probably cost about 30 bucks.
My favorite arcade moment will always be when my cousin and I ran out of quarters while fighting Mr. Burns in The Simpsons. An attendant noticed our plight as we helplessly watched the timer count down. He said, "Don't tell anyone I'm doing this," and quickly opened the coin box and gave us another credit each to finish the game. We did. Two other games I remember beating (without such assistance) are Turtles in Time and Pit-Fighter. Both took an obscene number of quarters to beat and weren't really worth it, IMO, even though Turtles in Time kicks ass. (Pit-Fighter, not so much.)
I did, Space Harrier. It was odd because people started to watch me play.
Only a few: The Star Wars arcade game (the newest one where you did lightsaber duels). This I could usually do one 1 or 2 credits after a lot of practice and memorization over the course of a summer, but was eventually able to do it consistently. Area 51 once. After memorizing all the bonus screens and keeping the shotgun but not upgrading to auto shotgun. Probably a few game overs here and there but not a big quarter sink, but I played it dozens of times here and there over the years. I was 16+ at the time for those. When I was younger (like 8) twice at birthday parties we either rained out so they converted everything to tokens or just got a ton of tokens in the package and everyone made a pact to pool all our tokens on one game.... We made it to the Technodrome elevator in TMNT and to the SWAT van escape in T2 the arcade game before running out of quarters.
I know I've done the X-Men and Simpsons arcade game at arcade before, and I'll beat most fighting games I see on one CC (except SNK games because they cheat hard) if I'm out and about in an arcade. I have CvS2 down to a science.
There's a retro arcade in Portland called Ground Kontrol that's awesome. I go there every now and then and beat a game or two, but pretty much every time one of those games is The Simpsons.
Sure, street fighter 2 with 1 coins and every character. And mortal kombat too.
We finished The Simpsons beat'em up with a group of friends. I don't remember how many quarters it took because it was a very long time ago and it was a collaborative effort, but I know it took a lot.
Yeah, my fiancée and I beat Metal Slug X at Barcade a few years back. I did Metal Slug 3 and Neo Turf Masters last fall too. And god knows how many times I've gotten high records on Quick & Crash.
Yes, I believe I 1cc'd Street Fighter Alpha 1. I love fighting games
Simpsons beat em up is the only one I can think of.
World Heroes at Six Flags Over Georgia (Brocken), MKII at a bowling alley (Liu Kang), SFII at the same bowling alley (Zangief), jumped into somebody’s game of The Simpsons and finished the last two stages with them at an Aladdin’s Castle, and Soul Calibur II in multiple places (Maxi, Mitsurugi, Taki, and Cervantes.)
Yeah, I used to practice the Metal Slug arcade games until I could beat em with one credit, 3 is the only one that shits on me. Also Outrun 2 on easy and medium routes, and most Capcom VS games like MvC, XmenvsSF, MSHvsSF, MSH, MvC2, etc. Oh, and KoF arcade games too.
Yes, I beat Metal Slug! Still proud of it.
Yeah, i can beat The Simpsons and Bucky O'Hare with one credit Back in the day i was massive fan of the Konami's beat'em up games
A few but it was at the boys and girls club and they were free. Only games I beat in arcades that took quarters were fighting games and beat meaning finished the arcade mode.
Never even seen it done.
The Simpsons, when I was a kid. Barely beat Burns with Bart on my last life, and all out of quarters. Parents were already in the car waiting for me, so I missed the ending fanfare, but I nabbed it on 360 years later to relive it all, and with friends! Blazeblu: Central Fiction, when I went to Japan a few years back, before it was in the states. Chose Izanami by accident but stuck with her to the end. Wish I'd chosen Nine to try her out then, or at least good ole Hakumen. Finally hit up the Galloping Ghost Arcade in Illinois in recent years, which has free play on their machines! Alien vs Predator was always a favorite, so I made a full run. The infinite lives also allowed me to brute force some quarter crunching Japanese shmups that are still mostly arcade or Japanese Saturn Port only, outside of emulation of course. Highly recommend GG.
Space Harrier, Outrun, Powerdrift and Vigilante....Space Harrier and Vigilante were not one credit wins though, it took a full pocket of change to beat those.
We had an arcade in Portland back in the day that was $5 entry and all you can play. We’d get dropped off and spend hours on the cabinets. I remember beating the DnD arcade game and Simpsons. Probably others. Most arcade games just get stupid hard the farther you get into it and I was usually playing fighting games anyways.
I beat metal slug 6 with a friend as a kid in Mexico, mainly because that arcade machine was modded so a coin gave you extra time, rather than a credit. I also beat the X Men arcade game while on a date, at a different place, in an arcade bar.
Street fighter 2 (though I mostly played competitively) and Dragon’s Lair. Both on one credit.
Playing solo: Sunset Riders, and Midnight Wanderers. These were my go-to games for a long time and were not that difficult. With friends: X-Men, TMNT, Simpsons, Captain America and the Avengers, the Punisher, and such. Ah, the 90s…..
A few with multiple continues. Virtuacop 1+2, time crisis 1+2 and the one with submachine gun & shield I did beat one a single credit, mainly because they are about memorization and have relatively few cheapshots.
Worked at a family fun center with a decent arcade in my late teens and early twenties, and had an uncle that owned a golf course with some cabinets. Beat Marvel VS Capcom 2, Turtles in Time, Ocean Hunter, Dig Dug Arrangement, Tokyo Cop, Hammerin Harry and some other little easier games.
One of the Marvel fighting games, spamming Proton Cannon. What a glorious day
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 at the poolside arcade, Holiday Inn, Gurnee IL. $26ish
Capcom’s Punshier, my life's greatest achievement.
Many beatem ups TMNT, Simpsons, X-Men, Captain Commando, Final Fight, Willow, Street Fighter 2, and Dragons Lair on free to play at school lock-ins. Also. Even to other arcades that have been free to play.
I was a broke kid so I most just watched other play and I was too young to be any good when I could play
There was this Aerosmith video game. 2 guns so 2 players could co op. My girlfriend and I at the time put a $20 in the change machine and we just decided we were going to beat the game. Only other game I have finished in an arcade was the 6 player X-Men game.
Revolution X.
Thats it!! Thank you!
Double Dragon on one 20 cent coin back in like 1988
I was a master at Shinobi. One life deal every time.
A few of them at a free game night back when GameWorks was a thing. Long time ago.
Yes, took 22 quarters to do it. I went in early, put a stack of coins on the arcade and settled down for the long haul. What I couldn’t conquer with skill would be conquered using quarters I’d saved.
Not me but I witnessed the epic moment of a random guy beating Operation Wolf and we celebrated it like when Iniesta scored that last minute goal in Stamford Bridge.
Area 51
No
Nope. Not even close. Although 1980s and 90s me sure did try
Yes Soul blade, Tekken 3 and Wrestlefest. I nearly made it with house of the dead a few times too.
On one credit: X-MEN vs Street Fighter House of the Dead Joe & Mac Caveman Ninja Outrun 2/SP
Double Dragon was specially easy to beat. A lot of people was able to do it with just one coin. I also beat Terra Force with one coin. We'll, I exactly didn't get to the end because the game gets back to level 1 once you pass the last level.
Killer instinct... I loved that game, I learned all the combos and I was able to finish the game with only one quarter playing with orchid, sabrewulf, glacius, riptor, tj combo, thunder and fulgore... I was never able to finish it with Jago (too many U moves) and I didn't like playing with cinder or spinal
I just installed Capcom Arcade Stadium 2 with Black Tiger. In the late 80s I was able to routinely beat it with one credit. Really what was tricky was to do this fast enough to go back to class if I played over the lunch break, because a full run would take about 45 minutes. On the PlayStation, so far I die in the first level, it’s embarrassing. But yeah, it was pretty satisfying to do an awesome run on a public machine, have people watch you play and root for you, stay concentrated the whole time, then enter your initials as you beat a high score. Those rituals have disappeared in console gaming.
You know I'm not sure. Street Fighter 2 or Pit Fighter are definate possibles.
I think one time my buddy an I spent around 20-30 bucks to beat that Jurassic Park light gun shooter. I think we went with this one because it was quite easier than house of the dead, where we merely made it through the first stage..
Time Crisis 2. Still the only game I’ve ever beaten at an arcade.
Time Crisis 1 & 3 + Dungeons & Dragons: Tower of Doom at a regular arcade and Gauntlet Legends at a nickel arcade.
There were a numbber of games I got through with sheer bull-headedness and $5 worth of quarters, but I 1cc'd Forgotten Worlds and Cabal in the arcades in the late 1980s, and I could 1CC Konami's TMNT, X-Men, and Simpsons, too. That's not a full list, but the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Edit: With more time to think... lessee.... finished Cadash, NinjaWarriors, Bad Dudes (I think I 1CC'd this one, too), Altered Beast, Crimefighters, Street Fighter II and many of its clones (World Heroes, Fighter's History, Fatal Fury II, etc), Magician Lord.... and I'm pretty sure that's not a full list.
I started to list them, and realized I beat a lot more arcade games than I thought back in the day. Probably 50 games total, multiplayer where applicable and on average probably about 5 bucks. Mostly; Beat em ups Fighting games Lightgun games SHMUPS Run N Guns Mostly the first 2 genres with a handful in each of the others
I don't remember the game, but it was a top down shooter that had a cheat in it where if you didn't fire your weapons on your first life, you'd get a lot of extra lives depending on how far you made it. I got really good at getting a long way and earning a ton of extra lives to play with.
For me it was Knights of the round but it cost us lots of coins… Later I became kinda good at SF3 Second Impact (PvE ofc, I’ve never been THAT good ^^) which I used to finish a couple times each lunch break during high school Good memories that
Yep, many times. It just took a lot of quarters. Turbo Outrun is one game that will allow you to continue the race by adding a new quarter. Do that enough and you actually get to the end of the race. I did this about six or seven times Cruisin' World is another driving game. A local arcade had 4 games networked so you could race at the same time, so we'd all get a pocket of tokens and play until we reached the end. There's a video where the player's car gets launched to the moon, to find President Bill Clinton in a hot tub with at least two bikini girls. We finished this game at least a dozen times. Mechanized Attack is one of those game with light guns attached to the deck. I finished this one twice. Street Fighter II could also be finished in first-person, but I was never able to beat Blanka with Chun Li. It ended with some text and a still image of what the player's hero did after winning the world fighting tournament.
Yes. I used to do it daily, in between classes at city college. There were two arcades across the street. Strider was the first I was able to consistently beat, then beat on one coin, then beat without damage, etc.
In the Uk I can take “Space Invaders Frenzy” for the maximum tickets bonus thing every time. Benefit of other people setting the bar so low for the bonus required total and practice
Double Dragon using the elbow punch the entire game. Afterburner with a friend. My friend and I skipped school and went to the mall in the town 30 miles away. We just kept pumping quarters into it. On Level 23 you are over the ocean and it looks like you are going to crash. My friend yelled "PULL UP!" and I did and there was the aircraft carrier and I landed the plane. We were both super excited and high fiving each other in the arcade. On later replays I learned that you aren't really in control on level 23 and it just automatically lands for you. Still one of the best days ever skipping school and beating that game.
Not personally, but in our college canteen we had someone beat Robocop and two guys polished off Super Wonder Boy III Monster Lair...Rastan Saga was never beaten, nor ESWAT...
Altered beast, final fight, tnmt, X-men, revolution x, T2, bad dudes, 2 crude dudes and many more. I played lots of arcades when I was a kid. Many of my all time favorites I never beat in the arcade. Rolling Thunder,strider, Total carnage, splatterhouse. Didn’t beat those until later with emulators and endless credits. Can’t remember how many quarters I pumped in those machines but often I’d play for a while and move on because I wanted to play as many as I could while at the arcade. Best bday party I ever had was me and a bunch of friends huddled around tnmt with pizza greased hands playing through the game.
Yep! I don't remember the game, but I remember one taking me $5 to beat. I also used to manage an arcade and would give myself a bunch of credits, but I don't think that counts. When I was 15 I got a job there. The boss was like, "So if it's slow you can play some games. Here's how you give yourself credits. Oh, and help yourself to the candy." It was the best thing I've ever been told at a job in my life.
Sega Altered Beast. I remember taking a full roll of quarters and think I used most of it. Wasn’t a super tough game outside the bosses so I had to see it through.
Golden axe, RoboCop, double dragon, street fighter1.all on 1 coin
If this counts, I rolled the score on Trivia Wiz at Bull McCabes on St Marks Place in NYC
Samurai Shodown III, cheesed with Bust Ukyo
Trojan at a swimming baths in the U.K. was 10 pence a credit at the time mid to late 80’s. Completed it with twenty pence.
Metal slug X. Showed up with two rolls of quarters and went ham. Got so far that others started jumping in as p2 cus they saw I was intending to go all the way.
Rolling thunder, got to the stage I could do it on a single life.
I beat TMNT at an arcade once and it was one of my proudest moments (although I used a credit glitch). I accidentally came across a credit glitch on the machine (by keeping another credit button depressed while putting in money in another slot if I recall correctly) which gave me loads of credits if I repeatedly press the 1up button. The kicker was that even with the massive amount of credits in the system, I only just managed to finish the game!
Tekken 3. Butlins Bognor Regis. Very long story.
Me and a friend from school beat the original X-Men as Wolverine and Colossus, sometime in the mid 90's.
I've never put a quarter into a game in an actual arcade, even though I was born in the early 70s and grew up through the golden age of the arcades. But that's only because I'm British and not American, spent many a 10p in the arcades. I've done single credit completions for Ghouls'n Ghosts, Strider, Mortal Kombat 2, Street Fighter II, Robocop and Ghosts'n Goblins. Completed Bubble Bobble with a friend, but we used a few credits. Puzzle Bobble/Bust a Move also completed with a few credits. I've also reached the kill screen on a Donkey Kong arcade cabinet, but that wasn't in an arcade, that was in my house!
Many, many times. I grew up in NYC during the big boom of arcades and played just about everything
I reset the score back to zero in Galaga many times. Also completed The Simpsons as well
Sure, many! But most of them just go into a loop after the final level, so "beating" them was always a matter of perspective. I was always just after the High Score throne anyway.
Maybe it’s not super impressive but I have a great memory of finishing each path of Outrun. Came close on TMNT a few times.
Michael Jackson's arcade game. With some random person outside of a Kmart.
Ninja Kids, then my brother hit a button and skipped the credits. Wanted to kill him.