How do you feel about the difficulty of retro games? One thing

>>3383476
>How do you feel about the difficulty of retro games?
indifferent

>One thing I hear many people who enjoy retro games are that they are more difficult
they're bullshitting. There's a distinct difference between old and new games, but difficulty is not it.

>What do you think makes good difficulty?
fairness. The computer can be subject to a different ruleset, for AI purposes, but they need to be fair and consistent

>Do you think something like a fighting game has a higher difficulty then a "normal" difficult game?
what's a normal game?

>What would you say makes a game "unfair"?
Aspects playing on the difficulty of the input, and the computer being able to bypass obvious rules, especially in games where the computer is supposed to be a peer.

>What game would you say has the perfect difficulty?
no such game, largely because there's no perfect difficulty to begin with. There are excellent games that aren't difficult at all, and they work in part because of that; and there are games that will chew you up and spit you out, and they're awesome for it. What matters is that the whole thing is consistent about it.

>>3383476
The thing about retro games is that many of them don't have a save feature, or the system's scope limits how much content the game would have to be.

Many titles work around this by severely punishing the player, often forcing them to restart the entire game, to pad out how long it would take them to finish it. Arcade games are also designed to squeeze money out of the player, hence their tendency to have the player frequently killed.

Another thing is when an arcade game is ported to a system with the coin-milking difficulty intact. In an arcade you would typically have as many attempts at the game you would be willing to spend money on. If you have that same game on, say, the NES? That luxury is gone. You only have whatever continues the game hands you.

Nowadays with how powerful systems have become and the ability to save your progress being an expected, essentially crucial feature, many games have become more forgiving. This is because they can provide you with a lengthy, time-investing experience not through repetition, but by simply taking a long time to complete.

Compare Super Mario 3D World to Super Mario Bros.

3D World is easy as piss but still takes a very long time to 100% because there's so many levels and so many green stars. Meanwhile a child back in the day may have taken a roughly similar amount of time to beat SMB1, because of the amount of practice it would take to properly beat the game in one sitting without warps or cheats.

This change in focus over the years makes older games seem far more difficult, almost "unfair", to new players.

>>3383535
>Do you think something like a fighting game has a higher difficulty then a "normal" difficult game?
>what's a normal game?

This. What do you consider normal? Fighters are a specific case though since they're really designed to be played in multiplayer and the single player modes don't do the games justice.

Also perfect difficulty will always vary with individual players because different people won't all respond the same to any given challenge.

>>3383980
The problem with this is, there is a significant portion of people that don't feel invested in games that are too easy.

Like everything in life, if there's no challenge in it, a lot of people will lose interest.

This is why stuff like skateboarding takes over peoples' lives. Because it's difficult so they have that room to improve.

But hey, pretty sure we're all just showing our age now. Embrace it and be the cool old dude.

A real good game can be enjoyed by players of all skill levels. Not like I'd know since I'm terrible at videogames.

>>3383476
"Thorough research" my ass. Most US arcade games had fucked up unfair difficulty. Like removing extends from Battle Garegga or making Street Fighter 2 default to turbo and hard settings.

>>3384075
>Not like I'd know since I'm terrible at videogames.

Sounds accurate, that statement is completely ridiculous.

Taken as a whole retro games are more difficult, the guy above who said otherwise either wants to be contentious or doesn't play games much. You can point to shit like Dark Souls if you want to do me a favor and highlight the exception that proves the rule.

>>3384134
>>3384134
Can you show me a retro platformer more difficult than Super Meat Boy?

>>3384031
Yeah, that's the tricky thing. The current approach suits a lot of people but leaves people who adjusted to that old environment behind. Thankfully now and then there's the odd game that caters to that sort of thing.

>>3384142

Megaman DOS version

>>3384031
>Like everything in life, if there's no challenge in it, a lot of people will lose interest
don't assume your own stance is representative

>>3384142
Super Meat Boy is not difficult because the levels are so short. It's practically playing with save states.

Ghosts 'n' Goblins is harder. Castlevania 3 is harder. Battletoads is harder.

>>3384386
It's short IF you know what you're doing, which can apply to just about every game. Otherwise some levels will have you rip your hair out.

>>3384393
anon did not say the game is short. The time between a save state and a death is. Short iteration cycles tame the difficulty. Compare with game where you need to do a flawless 10 minute sequence of actions before the boss kills you, forcing you to do the same flawless 10 minute sequence again

>>3384142
I'd say most games that are stingy with extra lives is harder than Super Meat Boy.
I beat Super Meat Boy in a few hours because I could keep bashing my head against a level for as long as I'd like.

I think it would take me longer to beat a game like Mario 2 just from restarting so often.

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361KB, 174x172px

I don't think hard games are easier now than they used to be. The difference is that in the retro era most games tended towards being hard, whereas now there are a lot of easy/casual games as well so it can look like they're easier on the whole.

>>3383476
As a general rule I really like the harder difficulty of older games. Good difficulty is something that challenges me. Only an abnormal person would think a fighting game isn't a normal game. Nothing makes a game unfair except cheating. Perfect difficulty depends on the player. For you, probably any kirby game.

>>3383535
>but difficulty is not it
You should try some difficult games sport.

>>3384078
>WHHAAAAA!!!
git gud

>>3383476
>How do you feel about the difficulty of retro games?

An unfortunate relic of the transition from arcade games to home consoles that was used to prevent kids from beating games in a Blockbuster weekend rental.

Any game that doesn't give you AT THE VERY LEAST infinite continues without some bullshit handicap is actively hostile to its players and shouldn't be tolerated. This immediately disqualifies half of the NES library, but thankfully it's pretty easy to cheat your way around.

What is worse are games that are so incredibly obtuse that you can't figure out what the fuck you're supposed to be doing. Fuck you Simon's Quest.

>>3385239
OP here, "normal" was definitely not the correct term. I meant is something like a fighting game where you have to learn things like it's mechanics and matchups more difficult then something difficult because of no continues or one hit deaths. Just a opinion question.

I think you were trying to offend me by saying kirby is for me? I don't really get that that, kirby games are well made games.

>>3385337
>I don't really get that that
that anon is a difficulty-tard, thinks only hard games are worthwhile games. Don't mind them

>>3385337
Depends on what's difficult for you. Some people have difficulty with motor skills, memorizing move sets, tactics, strategy or identifying a wild pokemon by it's cry. I only have difficulty with the last one.

Some people have difficulty distinguishing between "difficult" and "well made". Goofs like this should probably stick to kirby.

>>3385342
And some are so insecure about their lack of skill that rather than just ignore such obvious confusion they white knight about it.

nothing is more repetitive than hardcore gaming, you just grind endless attempts looking for an outlier
all categories are arbitrary

>>3385632
the futility of it all. the statistical waiting game
grinding endless attempts, waiting for the outlier
never enough, suboptimal, improvable
my mind wanders...

Well maybe modern games are more up your aisle if you can't get good. /vr/ is not for retards.

>>3385662
Who are you even directing this at?

>>3385682
(You)

>>3383980
>Many titles work around this by severely punishing the player, often forcing them to restart the entire game, to pad out how long it would take them to finish it.

This fucking shit right here. I don't mind a challenge, but I despise repeating long stretches over and over again or getting booted back to square one just to pad shit out. Also, a lot of older retro games simply didn't receive the sort of play testing and general polishing that later games did. Shit like the battletoads scooter level should have never seen the light of day.

>>3385337
>>3385239
The difference between fighting games and "normal" (single player) games is that they're designed for multiplayer. The single player modes of those games are trying to simulate another player, but that's such a hard thing to do that they just end up cheating at their own game.

Also getting good at the single player side of them can actually make you worse playing them because the things you have to learn to beat cheating AI are different than the way you learn to play fighting other people.

>>3385613
>Some people have difficulty distinguishing between "difficult" and "well made". Goofs like this should probably stick to kirby.
The ones having difficulty to distinguish them are the ones seeking the difficult games, thinking they're good

>>3386205
Some people just like very difficult games though. There are people who legitimately think the speeder section in Battletoads is a decent challenge and that Super Ghouls n' Ghosts goes too easy on you. There's not necessarily anything wrong with that, it's just not representative of most players.

>>3387934
>Some people just like very difficult games though
Absolutely nothing wrong with that. What's wrong, and that's what multiple anons have used, is that games need to be difficult to be good

>>3388456
This board is full of idiots who think stupid shit like that, or pretend to because they think it makes them cool.