Why were video games so much more difficult in the 80s? Even

>>385981075
It was a way to extend play time. You can play through the games in half an hour, but it would take weeks of trying. And many were home versions of arcade games, which had higher difficulty to eat more quarters.

>>385981075
Castlevania can be beaten in a 15-30 minute sitting depending how good you are.

It is a timing game, there are a few random elements, but gamers these days don't have the patience we had back as kids in the 80's, you only learn patience with major risk involvement.

Now that every 5 minute has a save, or quick saves, no one thinks shit out, they just blitz and go back.

totally different if you lose all your progress if you fuck up.

>>385982337
>having to redo the same thing over and over again
Why would anyone possibly think that's a good thing?

>>385982550
>thinking because you cleared something once you mastered it
the point is to be able to do it consistently, and having to replay large sections of the game forces you to do this

>>385982550
Same reason you do things over in real life. Practice makes perfect.

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1. Games used to be very short and very expensive. Gotta do something to artificially extend their length
2. Ports of arcade games with no way to put in more quarters
3. many were simply poorly made
4. Many were extremely cryptic as a way to sell magazines with walkthroughs

If you think old games were hard for any kind of noble reason, you're an idiot.

>>385981075
Carryover from arcade games trying to literally jew you out of more quarters and devs wanting to extend playtimes.
Honestly not a horrible thing in retrospect, certainly more interesting than games being piss easy.

>>385982718
But I don't want to have to master a game just to beat. That's what extra content and 100% completion objectives are designed for.

>>385982337
>gamers these days don't have the patience we had back as kids in the 80's
It wasn't so much patience. It was more the fact that you could probably only buy one game at a time and if you were stuck with a hard game, you were going to try to beat it regardless because there wasn't an alternative.

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>>385982337
>gamers

>>385982550
hope you don't play most games then anon, like mmo's, moba's, fps's, strategy games, card games, monopoly, etc etc

>>385981075
>A lot of games were ports of arcade games or following the same design philosophies out of familiarity.

>Acted as a way to artificially extend the play time, since many could be completed in under an hour without their higher difficulty.

>Most playtesting was done by the actual development team, who'd naturally find their own work too easy as they replayed it again and again. Iwata talked about this on GameCenter CX.

>Cryptic hints and well hidden secrets made games more appealing to magazines like Nintendo power since it gave them more stuff to cover, and magazines were one of the major ways to market a game back then. In an interview Kitamura, the director of the first two Mega Man games, actually said it was the reasoning for weird design choices like Metal Man being weak to the Metal Blade.

>Some games were simply poorly designed. The industry was younger back then, there were no schools for game design and no rules. Developers were still experimenting and figuring out the basics.

There's a lot of factors.

>>385983145
>Most playtesting was done by the actual development team, who'd naturally find their own work too easy as they replayed it again and again. Iwata talked about this on GameCenter CX.

How to avoid this?

>>385983142
None of those are games you can actually beat. Also card games and monopoly are purely luck based.

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>>385983145
>schools for game design

Games started out being hard because they needed to be, otherwise arcades wouldn't make money.

Games continued to be hard because it was what the people wanted, after overcoming the kind of shit arcade games throw at you, you just want more and more.

The problem occurred when people that had never played arcade games for any significant amount of time started playing games at home on consoles and PCs.

These people had no reason to care for difficulty in games because they never experienced it, and with the passage of time these people outnumbered the arcade natives due to a combination of games becoming more popular, and marketing naturally only bringing new games that had already been watered down to peoples attention.

Over time games were less about well made challenges and more about escapism, and all kinds of other crap people dreamed up once they were free of the limitations of the arcade. Games didn't throw away their arcade roots until the PS1s' popularity took off. That can be accurately measured as the point at which casuals started to outnumber the hardcore.

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>>385982550
It's satisfying to play again and again until you've mastered a game.

>>385982550
If the game is fun why wouldn't you want to play it again and get better at it?

>>385984846
t. degenerate speedrunner

>>385981075
They evolved from quarter-munching arcade games. It's why lives and timers were still prevalent despite not having to make time for other players and/or jew more quarters from kids.

>>385982550
Have you ever played a video game before? Why are you even here? lmao

>>385981075
Go to an arcade and see how far you can get on one quarter.

>>385981075
Because they had very little ROM space, so the games were much shorter, so the had to make them harder to make them last longer, otherwise you'd beat a 60$ game in an hour.

>>385982337
I really like the game, until Death comes along. I haven't beaten him yet and I refuse to use the holy water. Fuck that boss

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>>385985301
I like to play well designed games with a good balance of difficulty, progression, and optional content.

>>385982337
>Timing game
Death can suck my dick

>Start the level
>Get me a bunch of hearts and a nice axe to beat death with
>Get the two and three attacks per second upgrades
>Pick up knife by accident
>"O-okay, I guess I'll just get the cross"
>Before I get to pick up the damn cross, another combo upgrade spawns
>"W-well I guess I won't get to spam death..."
>Carry my shiny new cross to the last floor and get blown to death by medusa heads while knights butcher my corpse
>Spawn one floor before the last one
>Pick up cross
>Repeat
>Get to death
>Boss glitches up between blocks and I can't hit it
>die by scythe spam
Great game guys

>>385985637
That's the problem with your generation. you want everything to be perfect and catered to you, can never handle playing a game the way it was meant to be played.

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>>385981075
OG Castlevania > shit > Super Casual

>>385985986
No, I just have standards. There's absolutely no reason to tolerate bad game design when there are so many other options out there.

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>>385985931

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>>385986176

>>385986092
Not one Metroid game has ever been hard so take your offtopic shitposting somewhere else.

>>385986175
You sound like an obscure let's play youtube channel.

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>>385986509
UWaahhhhh, it seems we have a Friend here who has no reading comprehension.

>>385985931
>cross
Use holy water you fag. The only reason you bring cross to death is because you use it a crutch for the medusa head/axe armor hallway right before him.

>>385985986
he's literally stating what he likes, what the hell is your problem?

>>385982550
In the context of playing video games over and over:

1. You die repeatedly but you want to finish the game. It's good especially back then, because games are expensive and you have to milk them for all their worth. Now, most games can easily be pirated or refunded and most people no longer feel the need to even finish a game past a certain point if some level of frustration or boredom sets in.

2. Once you finish the game, you develop more appreciation for it, which may lead to replays, to see if there's anything you've missed. How is this good? You further milk the game out of its worth.

3. Most people stop at number 2, but those that have developed an intense passion from the game (and happen to have or are willing to sacrifice a lot of time for it) try to beat it as best as they can. We're entering speedrunner / completionist territory here and thus may become unhealthy at times, thus it may become contentious that this level of playing a game over and over again is a good thing.

>>385986751
and he was stating is, what the hell is your problem?

>>385986781
#3 is literally mental illness though

>>385986928
>and he was stating is
what

>>385984690
masochism != hardcore

>>385981075
I recall Iwata explicitly stating that they playtested their games themselves and if it wasn't hard enough they made it harder.
Also because they're short as fuck if they weren't hard. Look up some speedruns/no damage runs of old games.

>>385982550
fuck off underage

Games these days actually control well.

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>>385982756
Good post. Looks like we can shut down this thread now.

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>be 14
>boot back up CV1, had never beaten it as a kid
>play for 4 hours straight and finally get to Drac for first time in my life
>power goes out

>>385985595
Keep throwing boomerangs to hit him. That way you can focus on the scythes.

>>385981075
I grew up playing those games, and I never had any problems with them.

In fact, I have a harder time playing current games, though it's not because of difficulty, but because of tedium and bullshit that gets injected into everything now.

Fuck I miss the 80's. Better movies, better games, better people. Fuck this gay Earth.

>>385987220
But he's right.
I started with Atari 2600 and then NES.
I never even finished Super Mario Brothers 1 because it fucking frustrated me that I had to restart from level 1 every time. I got to like level 3-4.
Also I never learned about the warps until much later.

Other badly designed games I played as a kid and never finished:
Ninja Gaiden: made it to jungle stage
Double Dragon: made it to pyramids

I finished Super Mario World on SNES and loved it because you didn't lose progress after death.

>>385983431
You also cant beat hockey baseball football soccer basketball volleyball....we should just never play them huh?

>>385987506
me too brah

>>385987614
what videogames are those

>>385987568
>SMB1
>badly designed

I will agree that Ninja Gaiden is a horribly designed game, fuck it

>>385987506
Great movies still come out all the time. The problem is all we ever hear about is fucking superhero movies and teen novel adaptations while the creative shit like gets no exposure at all. Same goes for music.

>>385987321
Yea darkroll dodge is so much fun but you cant play a game that makes you commit to a jump like cv1...lelz

>>385987614
We're talking about video games here, not sportsball faggot.

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>>385987568
>i need a save game feature or else the game is shit

>>385987725
Fifa the show madden...the first game was table tennis. Most first games were sports games....even joust was literrally a take on midieval jousting.

>>385987828
I just told you that I played on the Atari as a kid.
Typical GenZ reading comprehension there, anon. I was born in 83.

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>>385987506
The 80s is when culture went full retard. I don't know how you can miss that.

>>385987741
Some do, sure. But be honest, Hollywood has been creatively bankrupt for years, and a lot of the fun/unique shit that was greenlit in the 80's wouldn't be given the time of day by studios now.

>>385987932
anyone can pick up an atari, doesn't mean you're from that era.

>born in 83
no you weren't

>>385987924
and what do these have to do with reaching towards a long endgame?

>>385986175
>No, I just have standards.
Yeah, shit ones.

>>385988051
Not a single Gen Z kid would ever touch an Atari over a PS2+

>>385987828
inputting codes for specific levels is a relic of the past. There is no reason for modern games not to have a save feature besides arcadeish games like as Bullet-Hells.

>>385987991
Yeah, because (current year) is any better. We're circling the drain.

>>385987036
The fact that you see it as masochism is proof that you're a casual. You should absolutely never feel suffering due to a challenge. If you do feel it, you should immediately stop playing and think to yourself "why is this making me feel bad". There are literally only 2 possibilities. Either you don't have you priorities straight, or the challenge you're facing is poorly designed.
As an extremely common example of the former, fighting games very easily piss the average person off because they don't actually want to improve, they just want to win, and they want that win handed to them on a silver platter. Someone that plays to improve themself, rather than in a power hungry fashion, will absolutely never get mad at a well designed fighting game. Especially not when playing against someone that can consistently wipe the floor with them, because they know that playing someone that's THAT much better than them means that they have entered into a situation in which they have extreme potential to improve.
An exaggerated example of the latter is playing against a computer opponent in a fighting game. I say exaggerated because a really poorly designed AI doesn't even qualify as a challenge, their victory is assured. What do you do against an opponent that walks forward, waits for you to press a button, and then DPs you out of it with perfect timing? You block. What do you do against the same opponent that sees that you haven't pressed a button and they've moved within range to throw you? You get thrown. No matter what you do you're going to get blown away. There's nothing to learn there, and while most badly designed challenges in video games aren't that bad all of the time, they often ARE that bad some of the time.

Someone with the right mindset to take on challenging games understands that the most desirable outcome of a fight is losing, not winning. Because if you lose then you still have something to learn.

Because there are no playtester position during that time so it's the devs themselves that playtest the game and if you have devs playtesting their own games, they know when to jump, the enemy ai,etc so for their first passthrough it will be easy so they add more difficulty until it is challenging for them.

Some devs also want their game to last for awhile especially when games are not that cheap so they add more difficulty to lenghten game life.

Sometimes it is the limitation of the game/hardware. They could only add random ai movements instead of handcrafted just to name one example.

Hitboxes is also dreadful because of either hardware limitations or bad programming practices

Because of limitations, most opt to make a few hard enemites rather than a lot of easy ones.

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>>385985595
I will show you the way.

>>385987828
Games without saves are for literal children who are still too young to have actual responsibilities and can afford to sit in front of the tv for 10 hours straight playing a video game.

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>>385983145

>>Most playtesting was done by the actual development team, who'd naturally find their own work too easy as they replayed it again and again

please lets go back to that

>>385986961
I don't watch many speedrunners / completionists, but those that I have seen may have that slight streak in them. Maybe mental illness (and / or doting parents) is what gave them the time to spend playing videogames up to that point.

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>>385988240
Explain how this isn't a purely masochistic game. It literally isn't even possible to git gud, because all enemy spawns and actions are completely random, so there's no effective strategy you can even use to get through it.

>>385988882
Neither of those are entirely random and using the mediocre NES port of GnG is cherry picking.

>>385981075

People say that games today are too casual, but the truth is that games back then were just poorly designed. Most of what we remember as "challenge" are just crappy design choices/limitations

>>385981075
They were made by arcade developers, used to designing software that would steal your coins. The point was letting kids play videogames at home without having to go to the arcades and risking getting kidnapped by some podiophile.

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>>385988475
When I watch this webm and think of millenials trying to understand CV1 this song plays through my head.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eoC82RuAxqw

>>385988686

There has to be more to this than that. If someone actually works as a playtester they must be familiar with game design in some fashion. I wonder if the hallway was poorly designed/confusing in other ways.

>>385989085
No. Games are too easy these days. Anyone that is allowed to broswe 4chan will tell you that. Difficulty because of limitation means it is still dificult.

>>385988882
Is that the fucking console version dude? First of all emulate the damn arcade release, second it is 100% possible to git gud. I can get through the first 3 boss fights on one credit. I can't get any farther, but that is absolutely not because the game is masochistic, the game is way easier than people even think it is, the problem is that the game is fucking boring. Wasn't well tested at all, which is probably why it's so damn long. Playing further to find if it gets any better than the terrible low points it reaches around the start isn't worth the damn trouble.

>>385989201
>If someone actually works as a playtester they must be familiar with game design in some fashion.

That's not necessarily a requirement.

>most of the games mentioned here are not that difficult. Just needs 1-5 area repetitions/muscle memory or skill
Maybe you need to ask this in /vg/ because most of you are too young for this question.

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>>385988735
>slight streak

>>385989253
>Games are too easy these days
is that why everything is compared to dark souls now

>>385989085
I want to chime in that casuals did exist in the 80's. Most people would play arcade games for a couple minutes of fun. It was only a handful of really devoted players that would try to get that high score or see the ending screen to the game. The only difference between the casuals of the 80's and the casuals of today is that casuals wouldn't mind so much if they couldn't finish a game.
I'm a little tired of the revisionist history so called hardcore gamers like to push just to make it seem like every gamer out of the 80's has a hardcore skill set because of all the hard games that existed.

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>>385989451
Most threads on /vg/ are for casual games.

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>>385989462
>obsessing over some random tranny for literal years
you're not one to talk, you sperg

>>385989559
I mean /vr/.

>>385989492
>dark souls
>hard
Really speaking to a younger generation here.

>>385989715
What game is hard?

>>385988882
I was born in 81. I generally liked "hard" games but not this one. It was too hard. Fuck it.

>all these shitters saying it was shitty game design
Castlevania is the perfect example of difficulty done right. There are checkpoints within the level, and a game over only sets you back to the beginning of whatever level you were on. There really isn't much that's cheap or "artificially difficult". You can see why you died pretty clearly and what you should do next time.

>>385982809
I don't agree with this either. Most games nowadays are a slog because everyone who picks up a game expects to be able to beat it without actually having to get good at the game.

>>385989462
That's unhealthy alright.

>>385989451
>Not triple dipping in /v/, /vr/, and /vg/

>>385981075

games back then were just artificial difficulty

>zelda 1: difficult because you had no idea where to go whatsoever. the difficulty lied in trying out everything just to see what would work
>zelda 2: difficult because your sword is unreasonably short, when you miss it's usually because you misjudge the distance, but the sword is so short that it feels cheap

>>385989780
78 here and yes gouls and ghost is one of the hardest games. 2 hit deaths the whole game with armor.

It is up there with donkey kong. I mame played it recently.

>>385989780
Ghost and goblins just need repetition. Once you finishing one level, that level becomes easier after that, repeat until you finish the game.

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>>385981075
>thread about difficulty
>uses CV1 as a example
CV1 is easy though, other then death though he is honestly difficult. Use a actually difficult game like ninja gaiden or contra, or even CV3 would work.

>>385981075
Games were shorter so they were harder to make them last longer

Also many were ported from arcade games, where you would put quarters in for extra lives. The ports kept the difficulty but removed the extra lives.

>>385990063
Ninja Gaiden is harder than Castlevania for the wrong reasons though

>>385989790
Imo cv1 is the perfect game. Contrarians can fight my medusa head shooting dragon bone slithering cock.

Ps i wish they would morph that into a real cv enemy.

>>385989790
Why does it need to send you all the way back to the beginning of the level every 3 deaths? That's just dumb and there's no logical reason for it.

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>>385990063
Ninja Gaiden is so broken you basically have to exploit its mechanics to beat it. Good game, but fuck it at the same time.

>>385981075
The majority of video game development during that time was done with coin-op in mind.

>>385990169
>>385990280
Fair point, I really like NG but I give you that it is pretty bullshit. Don't think I'm saying CV1 is bad, it is a great game and I play it pretty often when I want a quick but fun game, but it really isn't hard with the exception I said.

>>385990280
>birds
What you do jump right after you attack or see one. These two depending on the scenario of course. Hesitate and you're fucked.

>>385990223
>that's just dumb
Because if you can't make it through the level in three lives or however many you have then why the fuck should you be rewarded with finishing the level? Obviously you're not doing good enough, so you keep trying until you're proficient.

Hell. Nowadays you can save state they problem spot until you figure it out and just do the whole level.

>>385989790
Death and Frankenstein are the definition of cheap and are largely responsible for CV1's reputation as difficult.

It's a good thing you can cheese them with holy water. Otherwise the game would just suck.

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>>385990463
There's more ways to play but the safest is to exploit the enemies spawn range. Really just forgetting the back direction exists makes the game a whole lot easier.

>>385990502
Why? I never use the Holy Water on Death. He's perfectly manageable with the Cross. There was a webm in this thread. You could probably do it with just your whip.

Frankenstein you just have to keep the hoppy fucker out of your way.

>>385990502
Frankenstein isn't hard, just casual filter. The hunchback can be annoying but you just have to keep good focus on him and maybe have a projectile sub weapon.

>>385981075
Simons Quest was stupid. How the fuck would I know to select the gem and kneel in a certain spot in order to get a tornado to take me to a new area?

>>385990491
>first half of the level takes no skill but is long and tedious as fuck
>second half is extremely difficult
>have to repeat the tedious part over and over again just to get a chance to attempt the part that requires skill and practice
How exactly is this fun again?

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>>385982809
>But I don't want to have to master a game just to beat
That's exactly why I like older games. You form a much better understanding of the game through practice than you would just doing shallow run through. Way more satisfying.

>>385981075
>>385987506
Where's that one image of the guy on the left playing old games as intended, learning the game, and on the right with the game designer hovering over his shoulder telling him everything to do?

>>385990654
Sounds like a "buy the strategy guide, punk" moment.

>>385983419
Simple: external testers. The HL2 dev commentary has quite a few parts where they talk about how they made a thing, players found that it sucked or confused them for some reason, and then they tweaked the thing.
>>385990694
I would rather just form a decent understanding of it, have fun, and finishing it in a reasonable amount of time.

>>385990654
Maybe try the retranslation hack. It fixes the townspeople's dialogue so that what they say are actual hints and not just random bullshit.

>>385990764
>>385990654
Wasn't Simon's Quest simply poorly translated, and the original version clearly explained what to do?

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This game is impossible to beat without that hidden cheat. If you really want to talk about difficulty, talk about this game.

>>385982756
True


Older =/= Better

>>385981075
I played castlevania 1 for the first time a few months ago, took me a long time to get past death. The rest really wasnt as bad as people make it out to be.
Then again some of my first games werent far off, SGnG and zombies ate my neighbors were regularly played when I wasnt doing mario or donkey kong or some other easy mode shit.
honestly dkc 1 gives me a ton of trouble in the final world compared to the others listed.

>>385990764
>Strategy guide
More like call the Nintendo Tips hotline, or subscribe to Nintendo Power, punk.

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>>385981075
Two reasons:
1) Game design was a new thing, and as result a lot of difficulty was simply circumstances of an evolving medium.
2) Development teams were very small and as a result had very few (if any) playtesters or Q&A people. This made it much more likely that the testers would master the game very quickly and that designers and programmers who had a familiar with the game that consumers generally wouldn't would judge the accessibility of the final product.

>>385990635
Frankenstein and the hunchback are both totally random. You can have a game where you successfully are able to weave around them or you can have one where Frankie just doesn't get out of your face and you have literally no place to dodge

>>385990928
Having the developer baby step you through the entire game, and then reward you with a big trophy at the end for mindlessly playing is definitely the wrong direction to take gaming, however. Modern games have some advantages over older ones, but older ones definitely hold some appeal for a very good reason too.

>>385984690
Post Summary
>muh hardcore

>>385991000
>only $4.99 per minute goy

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>>385989757

>>385990654
Fuck Simon's Quest. I could write a fucking essay on how shit that game is, if only for taking an amazing game like Castlevania and shitting all over what made it good in every possible way.

>>385991179
agaS detimilnu? Never heard of it.

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The Japanese didn't believe in allowing people to rent games without buying them. Many of the Japanese NES games that we played in America were made much more difficult as a result, to discourage us from being able to beat them as a rental.

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>>385991323
This was usually for the better, like in CV3's case.

>>385991179
having an unreadable title doesn't automatically make a game hard

>>385987506
Yeah but think about how much better porn is now. Or at least easier and cheaper to obtain.

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>>385986509
>Not one Metroid game has ever been hard

>>385981075
I do believe the difficulty was increased by the fact that most people played rented games, if you owned a particularly hard game you ended up getting good at it no matter what.

I had Joe and Mac for the NES, that game kicked my ass for the entirety of January of 1994 but since i didnt have to return shit to the video store, by february i had aquired enough skil to beat it everytime i sat down to play it.

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>>385991236
>agaS detimilnu

You owe me two sides, motherfucker.

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>>385987506
Don't forget better music.

>>385991390
Or Contra Hard Corps, or Ninja Gaiden 3

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>>385982789
>arcade games trying to literally jew you out of more quarters
How is this any different than P2W MMOs, paid DLC, etc.?
The monetary aspect should not involve with the game at all, period.
I'm glad we've moved past this. Too bad we still have to deal with other monetary aspects.

They weren't. Fire Emblem Conquest is the hardest Fire Emblem, beating FE5. Mario Galaxy 2 is the hardest Mario, beating Lost Levels.

While it's true that games like Gradius III (ARC) have never been surpassed in difficulty, this is just logical. You're comparing +30 years of video games to, what the last 4?

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>>385991390
>input name as AKAMA to start on hard mode
>mfw trying for the past three years, still can't beat it
I can deal with the lack of secondary characters but those fucking skulls that replaced the medusa heads are pure bullshit

>>385981075
Hadn't Iwata said that games on the NES were hard because they debugged them by playing them a lot? Also recently i've beaten a lot of NES games and they were good but there are very few were hard=/=unfair.

>>385991859
Its different because its purely skill based. You can pay all you want but you still achieve nothing, or you can practice and be able to clear games on a single credit consistently.

>>385991859
>spend 25 to 50 cents to experience the literal best in the industry
>not the best deal in any industry ever

>>385992101
It's a skill that's essentially gone now. The ability to entertain yourself for half an hour with a quarter in any arcade.

My parents loved me, just give the boy a quarter and he'll play Star Wars Trilogy Arcade until they're done.

>>385991859
>How is this any different than P2W MMOs, paid DLC, etc.?

Because your attempt at being an internet comedian is so fucking bad it's not going to keep any game company afloat, you fucking sad clown.

I cant believe you're trying to pass this as an attempt at pulling somone's leg.

>>385991859
With an arcade game, once you hit the $5 limit (assuming fifty cents a credit), you should know whether you can actually finish the game without spending $20. People who just dumped mountains of quarters into arcade machines for the sake of seeing a five-second ending were retarded.

>>385992101
Most arcade games were designed to be almost pure RNG with very little skill involved. Arcades operated basically like casinos, except worse because you could only ever lose money.

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>>385989551
Back then games rarely had a story to speak of so it didn't matter to most whether they beat them or not.
That gradually stopped being the case, so developers felt more and more pressure to make their games universally beatable. It's why story-heavy genres like JRPGs are much easier than, for example, shoot-em-ups.
Another factor is the rising costs of games. The more you spend on a game's assets the more you want them to all be seen and not go to waste.

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>>385991046
>1) Game design was a new thing, and as result a lot of difficulty was simply circumstances of an evolving medium.
Not really or at least, not in all cases. Roberta Williams loved to make her games (King's Quest series, The Colonel´s Bequest) hard as fuck because she loved challenge. Wizardry 4 was made impossible as fuck because Wizardry fans actually told Andrew and Robert that the trilogy was too easy. In other hand, Dragon's Quest and Final Fantasy were made easier than Wizardry because the devs wanted more people to enjoy the genre.
>2) Development teams were very small and as a result had very few (if any) playtesters or Q&A people.
Another myth. Video games at the end are just programs, playtesters were the devs and they used to put cheats to make easier to "debug" the game. So, playtesters knew how the game was made and because they constantly played their own games and got skilled. Because modern studios are so big these days they actually need playtesters but because reasons, they hire the most retarded people out there, see Valve's playtesters.

Just think about it anon. If devs where not skilled enough to design games, this map should be unsolvable and imposible to beat, big news, there are people that actually have beaten Wizardry 4.

>>385986175

You will never know that feeling of struggling through a difficult stage for hours or even days on end and finally conquer it.

Playing through modern interactive movies where you just kind of play along and everything is spoon fed for you doesn't give you nearly the sense of accomplishment.

>>385988475
>actually recorded via capture card.

You are an hero.

>>385991492
Metroid games are about self imposed challenges anon, is one of the few IPs that actually is designed around replay value, but I agree, og Metroid casual run is harder than any other Metroid casual run, except maybe for Metroid Prime 2 1.0 NTSC.

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>>385990764
>>385991000
>More like call the Nintendo Tips hotline, or subscribe to Nintendo Power, punk.
Nintendo Power also sold a few strategy guides around the NES-era. Hell, the entire Japanese strategy guide industry started because of the Famicom.

>>385990882
The localization of Simon's Quest was pretty accurate. The NPC hints were just a cryptic and misleading as they were in Japan.

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>>385992619
I try.

>>385992435
>there are people that actually have beaten Wizardry 4
Yeah, people with autism.

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>>385992619
>"an hero"

Nigga no.

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>>385992101
This is the same logic MMOfags used to justify their monthly subscriptions, grandpa. Now take those meds and go to sleep.
Video games should be free, as in free beer.

>>385981075
>>385981075
Games werent harder back then, its just games today are fucking easy hand holding walks in the park. Controls back then were shitty, but not hard, nowadays we have 73848484884 buttons. Take og castlevania, when you jumped to a platform you couldnt move your character through the air back and forth to stick a landing, you had one go and if you fucked up and jumped too soon or hit an enemy, youre fucked. Nowadays every game pretty much defies physics and logic when it cones to controls, shit, in GTA games for instance, you can roll your car back onto its wheels of youre upside down... Games today are easy mode. Most old games like NES mario bros let you correct jumps and shit but early on it wasnt prevalent like it is now, every game is like that

>>385992343
>Most arcade games were designed to be almost pure RNG with very little skill involved.
No they weren't, why are you lying? There wasn't that much RNG, there couldn't be otherwise scoring would be broken.

>>385991323
>want the glorious VRC6 music but also want it to be hard
Fuck

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90s were objectively the best decade for video games

>>385992958
You're not fucking funny.

>>385989903
The sword in AoL had the same hitbox, it just looked smaller because the Link sprite was larger.

>>385992882
That guy was an hero too.

>>385993030
this

>>385993017
Use an emulator and savestate at the start of the second loop. Then start from there if you want to play. Problem fixed.

>>385992756
They were the first generations that played D&D and had an STEM major at the time when an Apple 2 without a GUI was your gaming rig, autism means nothing in that context.

>>385992435
>So, playtesters knew how the game was made and because they constantly played their own games and got skilled.
That's... what I said.

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>>385992756

>>385992973
The only "skill" involved in getting a world record in a game like donkey kong is having enough autism to keep retrying 10 thousand times until you get a better RNG pattern than the previous world record holder.

>>385993307
WR usually involves luck yeah, that's irrelevant to the vast majority of players though

>dude why are most old games hard?
>we all remember beating them as literally children
ok

>>385982550
it's almost like how in real life when you fail you have to do the thing over from scratch again

it's almost like the way video games used to be designed were that way to reward you with a very similar feeling to learning and accomplishing something in general, which games today don't really do all that much

>>385993030
>posts an '80s video game character

>>385993606
Video games are an escape from reality. I don't need to be reminded of how shitty life is when I'm playing them.

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>>385992729
>not whipping drac in the head twice before he teleports
>not saving a candle so you can get a double shot after throwing down a single holy water at dracula's feet

>>385981075
here's some shit I wrote down when I was drunk about this.

https://pastebin.com/xpMHMPx9

>>385993693
that's why when you escape to the game, and you suck at first then get good at the game, it feels like you're accomplishing things in real life and it feels good.

i don't use video games as an escape from reality as much anymore because a lot of games today don't let me.

>>385993693
That's why they're designed in a way where you will learn smoothly and get rewarded constantly without spending too much time on the games. Unlike real skills that can be incredibly hard to get into, unrewarding until you get to a decent level and very time consuming.

>>385993939
Sure, that's true for games with well designed difficulty curves. But games from the 80s are anything but that.

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I think it has a lot to do with the simplicity of controls and what characters can do. Compare those old castlevania games to a newer one in the franchise like Symphony of the night, Alucard can do all sorts of things to get out of trouble. Imagine trying to beat a game that huge but with gameplay exactly the same as the nes castlevania games. Also, I'm pretty sure developers just enjoyed making the games difficult and some franchises are well known for being hard, even more recent games like the Ninja Gaiden ones. I'm not gonna lie, it feels great to beat a game that is considered challenging by many.

>>385993627
>Phantasy Star IV
>'80s

>>385994032
Sure if you're talking about obscure shit, but notable games from the era have good rewarding difficulty curves. Especially console ones. Play them like arcade games to notice this (use a small amount of credits to play for a short time then stop), you will notice yourself getting better with each try.

>>385991179
That is just hard to get into, not as hard as some of the other entries in the series.

>>385993149
Good thinking. I guess I'm replaying III

The actual question should be, why are the big titles so easy today? Why is every asshole entitled to play through those game on literally handhold mode, when they can be legitimately hard and rewarding on the high difficulty settings?

Because otherwise we have games nowerdays that are in completely different leagues difficulty wise, getting max ranks in platinum games, unlocking everything in rougelites, modern shmups. hell getting every challenge in NSMBWiiU to gold.

>>385991193
The music is badass though

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>>385981075
Old guy here. Games on the NES? Those were NORMAL difficulty. Hard was shit like Wizardry 4 (pic related) or IO on Commodore 64 or any arcade game.

It's not that games were harder back then. It's that games are TOO EASY now.

You're not supposed to "beat" a game. "Beating" a game is supposed to be HARD TO DO. Only the best players are supposed to beat ANY games. Back in the day your skill was directly measured by how far you could get in a game. Now how far you get in a game only shows how much free time you have on your hands.

>>385991390
Castlevania III was better in Japan if only for being better balanced and the pirate guy not being worthless like he was in the American version.

>>385995249
Time for bed grandpa.

>>385995505
Its true. Games today are literally "walk around to win!"

It actually really sucks. I boughta ps4 but never play it because all ofthe games are to easy / boring. I doubt i will ever purchase another console again.

>>385981075
People were unironically smarter back in the day. Not only better at logic and math, but with better emotional intelect and impulse control which allowed people to drastically improve at stuff in short bursts of practice.

Not only have games gone to shit, you don't see kids coming up with complex dance moves, learning instruments, or playing with dexterity toys/games like yo-yo, billiards or air hockey. Standards for martial arts, gymnastics, cheerleading and dancing competitions have diminished and you don't see half as many art/sports prodigies.

Modern people can't deal with failure and in turn, can't do anything admirable. They're a collection of half-assed quirks that never developed into talents.

>>385996204
Go over to /vr/. They play all kinds of challenging stuff.

>>385981075
>Why were video games so much more difficult in the 80s? Even seemingly normie shit that everybody played, like Castlevania and Zelda II, are insanely hard to even complete.
the controls weren't responsive

>>385982809
You don't have to master Castlevania to beat it, but you need to understand it.
People who master Castlevania don't just beat it, they beat it with whip only, no damage, the highest score and under a certain timeframe.

This is the same mindset that caused the whole "hurr durr this game is the Dark Souls of whatever genre". Dark Souls is not hard, it just asks you to think and people literally ignore the game's cues and try to ape their way with it, no shit that doesn't work. It's like having an ass seizure instead of following instructions when someone's trying to teach you to dance and then saying dancing is hard.

>>385981075
They didn't want people renting the game and beating it on a weekend.

>>385996393
In those games they were fucking laser precise. The one thing I can't stand about modern games is the floaty laggy controls.

>>385986961
Ironically, it's the kind of behavior that makes someone rich if they apply it to a marketable skill.

>>385987483
Next time you play it'll be easier.
Just like lifting, that impossible bar becomes another step in the road to bara perfection.
Just like studying, that impossible test becomes another step in the road to 20int.

What games challenge is logic, spatial awareness, reflexes and most importantly the one thing that unlocks your potential to do anything else: willpower.

>>385987568
I can tell you're the kind of person that drops a job/relationship as soon as you're required to put any effort to it.

>>385996959
>buy modern game
>move Lanalogstick forward, then rapidly alternate between forward diagonals
>the character is so heavily encumbered by the "immersive" and "weighty" physics and animations that all they can do is shift their weight slightly to the left and right and barely inch forward
>refund it and play literally anything released before 2007

>>385996959
Nothing I hate more than 2.5D sidescrollers that just feel like shit to control.

>>385989085
Every single thing about Castlevania, Ghosts n' Goblins, Battletoads, Ninja Gaiden and Gradius is purposeful design and fucking fantastic.
Go play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to learn what bad design is and stop being a fucking loser whining because you can't deal with commitment.

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The big problem I have with old games when it comes to difficulty is how often they wouldn't fit a game's aesthetic. It makes sense for a Kirby game to be much easier than Dark Souls because it's the kind of experience the universe dictates. You expect DOOM to be a challenge because you're talking about an average military grunt surviving monsters from literally Hell itself with everyday ballistic weaponry. But back in the days of 20th century gaming you could have surviving traffic in a licensed adaptation of a family comedy be harder than killing God at the end of an RPG.

>>385997895
Are you describing an actual game? It sounds like fun.

>>385996959
>>385997592
>>385997765
Switch to Japanese games. Western devs have always been unable to design play control worth a fucking shit.

>>385997862
>Ghosts n' Goblins
>a game that's 100% rng
>purposeful design

>>385990280
You can run that shit without exploits if you're not a faggot who flinches at birbs. You have just enough time to kill the second eagle, land next to the knife thrower who conveniently always walks back as soon as it appears, and kill it before it throws the knife.

>>385992683
shit, i miss those days

last game i completed with my dad was CV4, haven't seen him in 26 years now

>>385998373
Why haven't you seen your dad?

>>385998131
Negro, I am an old idort. I don't have any current-gen consoles and am slowing my PC purchases by a shitload. I have a backlog of several hundred years and it's rare that modern games even interest me. I live and die by gameplay over graphics, narrative, whatever.

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>>385981075
Seriously, fuck stage 15. I've been trying so damn hard. I got Death to 1 bar earlier and scared my dog I squealed so loud. Like a fucking little girl. I am so ashamed.

>>385998486
lost track of him really
he's somewhere in jersey city, but idk where
he ain't on social media or anything like that so i can't look him up. it's been so long though, i kinda don't care. it'd just be a "hows life? oh, its good" conversation because nothing really interesting happened in my life since then.

just memories though, but good ones

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>>385998616
>I live and die by gameplay over graphics, narrative, whatever.
That's what Japanese games have always been about and still are. It's the west that has always been graphics over gameplay.

>>385998762
Is your dad black by any chance?

>>385998289
It's one of the more RNG heavy arcade games but it's nowhere near that bad. It only gets out of hand if you fuck up your routes, but the routes can be built and consistently executed because the initial spawns are the same.

>>385998839
no

im whiter than white noise

parents just divorced, thats that really.

>>385998827
There are definitely western games worth playing. I mean, I don't disagree that Japanese games gave us most classics, especially on console, but some western shit is amazing. Toejam and Earl is a good example. Dark Forces. Doom. Divinity: OS. STALKER. Roguelikes in general. Dungeon crawlers in general. Diablo I/II. I could go on.

Time Crisis 2 is the greatest video game of all time

>>385999089
>divinity
>most roguelikes
>good
nah. also
>STALKER
>western

>>385995443
Nigga Grant was OP, Sypha was the redheaded step child.

Just realizing that idiom doesn't work with women because redhead girls are actually hot.

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>>385998827
>It's the west that has always been graphics over gameplay.

>>385981075
There are several reasons, and I'm sure most of them have been said already.

- Arcade games. The arcade era was still happening, so the NES/SNES era games inherited the "coin" system. Nowadays it would be unimaginable to replay 3-4 levels because you failed.
- Hardness to give the impression of content. These are usually short games with a few levels, but they are so hard that you had to practice it over and over until you could beat it.

They needed the above two because the market was not as big as today. There was no Steam, no big sales. There was no big competition. You didn't have a wast library of games, only a handful at best, so if you had something, you most likely spend years with that. Unlike now where you can get 10 games out of a Humble Bundle. With that said, games nowadays have to appeal or else you'll chose something else to play with.

- We were kids. Since we were kids, we weren't that good at them to begin with. I bet if you would sit down now with all the vidya knowledge you have, you could finish even the hardest of NES titles in an afternoon.

>>385998289
RNG isn't inherently unfair or bad design.
Poker isn't unfair because it has a random element, but it would be unfair and badly designed if you couldn't get face cards unless you paid an extra for the J,Q and K DLC pack like modern games do.

>>385999405
>Ukraine
>Not Western
Sure as fuck isn't Eastern, especially in the context of vidya. Get out of her with your casual-ass taste and lack of geopolitical knowledge.

>>386000198
>Ukraine
>not Russian
>Russian
>western
Um, okay, sweetie.

>>386000354
>GSC Game World is a Ukrainian video game developer based in Kiev, Ukraine. Founded in 1995 by Sergey Grigorovich, it is best known for the Cossacks and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series of games.
Are you retarded? Don't bother answering, it's a rhetorical question, you dunce.

>>386000354
Slavs have way more in common culturally with Bongs and Vikings than sugio kawaii deska nani Nippon.

>>386000354
>Russia
>Not Western

You do realize it's about culture, not just geographic location, right? Aussieland is considered part of the West despite where it is.
>The problem is that geographically 35% of Russia is in Europe including its capital and the rest in Asia. So there is another point of view that Russia belongs both to Europe and Asia also known as Eurasia. It's a tough question and every country might have a separate opinion, but most people will say it's western.

>>386000474
>Ukrainian game was made by a slav, who had worked on an eastern game, in Ukraine
alright, so it's eastern

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does middle eastern count as eastern?

>>385982337
>you only learn patience with major risk involvement.


hadn't thought of it that way.

>>386000765
obviously, you fucking retard. kill yourself.

>>385981436
correct, informed answer , 0 replies

>>385982337
neckbeard game theorist shit with zero basis, ignites the thread

I seriously hoped you people wouldn't do this and you did anyway

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Developers didn't give a shit whether you could finish their game or not. They were basically Rubick's cubes, there weren't instructions or guides on how to complete it, but the objective was still simple/apparent.

But nowadays, competition between these companies is high. Difficulty really only serves to throw people off. Socially speaking, games have taken a position of stress relief and relaxing hobby.

I remember one guy said he was about to throw Megaman Zero 2 in the toilet because getting a Game Over at a boss fight put him back at the start of the level. That kinda design used to be standard procedure.

>>385988882
The NES game was outsourced to a budget dev, hence its jankiness. The arcade version and the sequel are superior.

>>385981436
This thread should've ended right here

>>385981436
this
>>385982550
this is why you dont have a job and live with mommy

>>386000998
>I remember one guy said he was about to throw Megaman Zero 2 in the toilet because getting a Game Over at a boss fight put him back at the start of the level. That kinda design used to be standard procedure.
Maybe I'm just fucking old, but I would probably be irritated if I could just keep fighting the boss over and over again despite failing hard.

>>386000681
>>>386001523

>>386001991
good job dickhead

>>385992683
>The localization of Simon's Quest was pretty accurate

That's why a retranslation was needed you mong.

>>385995249
All of that shit just sounds really unfun, frustrating and retardedly at the mercy of RNG.
>hurr wuzza matter, 2 hard 4 u casul?
Yes

>>385990063
>contra
>harder than castlevania
>comparable to ninja gaiden
have you ever played any of those games?

>>385987568
> I never even finished super mario brothers 1
fuck off, stopped reading there.

>>385996959
Correction, 60fps games are laser precise, it was true back then and it's true now. Most of the "hard" NES games didn't process 60fps.

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>Get a new game
>Crank the difficulty to maximum because I know it'll be piss easy otherwise and I'll lose interest
>Either not difficult enough or completely unbalanced and shitty because Very Hard just means enemies do 8x damage to you and take 8x damage to kill.

Not even vanilla Ninja Gaiden 2 on Master Ninja impresses me. XXY + Y to win, X+A + Y to win, 360UT with Lunar to win.

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>>385990654
Yeah, the nintendo powers, buy the fucking nintendo power. Nice AVGN reference there.
People are too harsh on Castlevania 2, but i actually put it first in the classic castlevania game because, i don't know, it introduced many concept and cool elements, i love the secret there is in this game, the openworld of it, the item system, the RPG side it introduced, the whip, the music. it's also missed potential: the game desu but it's okay because i kind of like this game at the end.
>>385991492
Metroid (NES) is not a hard game at all. The monsters aint that powerful, you find out pretty early that you can just farm health from the monster.
The big problems of this game (from a casual point of view) is, infact, how it tells you ABSOLUTELY FUCKING NOTHING! Like you enter the fucking game, click play, and then you appears, but you don't fucking knows SHIT about the maps, item, or even your objective. The shittiest thing is the objective room that ties the first shaft to the final shaft where you get to the boss, like it has 2 boss statue, but you don't know what it does because it looks exactly like the item reward room, you don't know at the beginning what is the purpose of this room.

But really, i wonder one thing:
HOW THE FUCK DID AVGN FINISH THIS GAME WHEN HE WAS A GOD DAMN CHILD? IF YOU WATCH HIS JAMES & MIKE ON IT, HE ACTUALLY HAS A DAMN VHS SHOWING HIM AS A KID PLAYING THE GAME, AND HE WAS AT THE PART WHERE YOU FIGHT THE METROID WITH THE FREEZE GUN USING THE "Freeze the metroid!" STRATEGY TELLING IT TO HIS BROTHER

HOW DID HE DO THAT? HE WAS A FUCKING CHILD AND HE BEAT OFF METROID? i would have considered this game to be impossible for a child to beat but he did it

>>385995249
Hey, wizardry looks kind of interesting.. he actually sold me this shit. I've also seen a bit of the later wizardry and it seems like these games are the perfect RPG where you can do everything but they're hard as fuck. I like training and practicing in a game and feelings the adventure, then ending the game and feels good about it. they should do a game like this in 3d.

>>386003020
Only genres like SHMUPS have put me in my place, and multiplayer RTS.

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>>386003327

>>386003327
He read the manual and nintendo power nigger

>>385981075
Because they were short as fuck and needed to last or more than an hour.

I'm thinking of starting an arcade of my own when I get my business going
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_zAxPqKa8Y

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>>385987568
>>385987735
>Ninja Gaiden is horribly designed

The only thing poor is the shift back to 6-1 if you lose against one of the final bosses. Aside from that, it's one of the most brilliantly designed NES games ever made.

>>385981436
fpbp

>>385996306
>Source: my ass

>>386003598
Go ask /vr/.

>>386003327
Metroid NES is just really tedious. I can deal with the weird jumping, not being able to crouch to shoot short enemies, and the lack of a map. But the whole 30 energy when you die thing is just bullshit. Restarting the game is quicker than grinding health pickups.

>>386004657
this