We're a week in on the Crispy Adventurers Club's first expedition, which is a group playthrough of the 1990 NES game StarTropics.

The very logistics of downloading the game annoyed some:

evohollywood: WHY DO I HAVE TO WASTE MY TIME UPGRADING YOUR STUPID STORE NINTENDO??

And others debated the legality of different save methods:

johnteti: If you just don't have time to play through the game the regular way, then I'd rather have people resort to savestates than to skip the game entirely. But yeah, I think it's more in keeping with the spirit of "adventure" if you restrict the save points to the ones provided in the game.

So far, the plucky 8-bit action role-playing game's elicited a mixed-to-positive reaction from the assembled Adventurers. A wave of nostalgia colored most folks' initial impressions.

GusMastrapa: I loved the bit where the pig shows you his butt. How often do you get to see a pig anus rendered in 8-bit? Not very often.

But that fell away once it dawned on everyone just how ball-bustingly hard the game was going to be.

w1ndstorm: I like hard or challenging bosses. Cheap bosses just make me want to play a different game.

As for me, I seem to be lagging behind, having only just started Chapter 3. I didn't realize I could use the Snowman Doll magic item to beat the Octopus at the end of Chapter 2, because I hadn't realized where the magic items were in the menu. As John Teti put it this afternoon, this game is from the era where people still read instruction manuals.

Of course, some overachievers blew right through the game:

JamesPeripheral: I just finished it and started Startropics 2. I miss the four-direction gameplay and keep slipping into the water in the 2nd one.

Show-off?

Slow as I am, I've still got three more weeks with Mike Jones. If you're on your second go-round or haven't started playing, jump in and join the discussion on our forums. And feel free to offer tips, too. Adventurers need to stick together.