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[Manmademan]

A lot of the truly "Nintendo hard" games were that way because of bugs, shitty controls, and bad design. Most of the better games from that era- the Mario games, Zelda games, etc- weren't that hard relative to their modern counterparts.

There's another angle to the "games were short so difficulty was upped to inflate playtime" answer- as games got longer in later eras, the ability to save your progress became more of a requirement, which naturally took away one of the major causes of the difficulty of older games- that if you failed too much, you'd eventually burn through all of your lives and continues and be forced to start over from the beginning. A save system places a limit on how far back a game can send you when you fail, so when you're stuck on one part you can spend more time working on that part and less time getting back to that part.

Citation clearly needed here. There were plenty of games with good design that were just hard as fuck because that's the way the game was. Not "bad design", just hard.

Even SMB (yes, the first one) is pretty tough to get through without using warp zones. Zelda II isn't exactly easy either.

What about Solomon's Key? Abadox? Bayou Billy? Double Dragon III? Mega Man? Ghosts N Goblins? no one in their right mind thinks these were badly designed.

Edit: the hardest NES game I ever FINISHED was probably Milon's Secret Castle- someone just gave me that one as a naked cartridge and i had no idea what the hell was going on. The game design is just bizarre.

 

[Tain]

Glad to see a good number of reasonable posts in here.

What slays me are phrases like "artificial difficulty" and "artificial play time". I feel like I'm seeing these pop up more often but maybe they've always been there. Talk about a twisted perspective.

 

[LingeringRegime]

Because Developers in that age had numerous pacts with the dark side.

In all seriousness, we didn't know any better. Believe it or not I still enjoy difficult games.

 

[charsace]

I don't think TMNT or BT is as hard as Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The boss in this game is nearly unbeatable.

Double Dragon 3 was another game that was hard as fuck. I beat DD 1 and 2 no problem. I could never battle through 3.

 

[antitrop]

Quest 64 is considered hard in the US? I don't know, I played through that one and I don't think I ever had a problem.

Compared to something like Final Fantasy VII, it may as well be Battletoads.

Quest 64 was a grindathon, more than should be reasonable. Awful game.

 

[SonicMegaDrive]

I don't think TMNT or BT is as hard as Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The boss in this game is nearly unbeatable.

Just build your punch meter up, back him into a corner and tap the punch button slowly. The key is mastering the punch controls.

 

[Manmademan]

I don't think TMNT or BT is as hard as Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The boss in this game is nearly unbeatable.

Double Dragon 3 was another game that was hard as fuck. I beat DD 1 and 2 no problem. I could never battle through 3.

I did manage to finish 3, but only did so co-op with someone else. Hard as hell. the whole "you get one life" business is probably why. You CAN die as billy or jimmy and finish the game, but then you're stuck with that ninja or the fat chinese guy. less than ideal.

 

[PKrockin]

I find it hard to believe someone is arguing Zelda and Zelda II "aren't that hard" relative to modern Zelda. I've beaten Zelda II four or five times and it still kicks my ass sometimes. I rarely get close to dying in any modern Zelda game. I would say the puzzles aren't exactly brain benders either but it could be I'm just used to the "Zelda logic."

 

[Manmademan]

I find it hard to believe someone is arguing Zelda and Zelda II "aren't that hard" relative to modern Zelda. I've beaten Zelda II four or five times and it still kicks my ass sometimes. I rarely get close to dying in any modern Zelda game. I would say the puzzles aren't exactly brain benders either but it could be I'm just used to the "Zelda logic."

True story- I was stuck on the second quest of TLOZ for over a year as a kid, because it never occurred to me to just try walking through walls. It's a new mechanic that just "shows up" in the second quest with no warning. I think I burned and bombed literally everything in the game before accidentally coming across it.

 

[Black Door]

1) Arcade ports, which were originally designed to steal quarters from sucker kids and drunk bar patrons
2) Games modified for the American rental market (balls hard=has to be rented more)
3) Many games would frequently be made by one or a handful of people, who had no concept of appealing to a broad market. "By programmers, for programmers" comes to mind here
4) Bad design and control choices made by underpaid/overworked developers working at studios that would shit the bed after three or four years

 

[PKrockin]

True story- I was stuck on the second quest of TLOZ for over a year as a kid, because it never occurred to me to just try walking through walls. It's a new mechanic that just "shows up" in the second quest with no warning. I think I burned and bombed literally everything in the game before accidentally coming across it.

Yeah, Zelda 1 has a lot of cryptic hints and secrets compared to modern Zelda. Combat-wise the difficulty is above modern Zelda as well. In the 3D games you can just raise your shield and you're almost invincible.

 

[kinggroin]

Mind explaining what those pictures are?

There has been nothing else said by any other member of this forum, that has made me feel as old as the above has.

 

[Kimosabae]

There has been nothing else said by any other member of this forum, that has made me feel as old as the above has.

haha

 

[Omega]

Co-signed.



This isn't criticism; its outright distaste. If the old games were so great, then why not just go back and play them and quit playing the new stuff?

because after awhile, it gets boring doing the same thing?

SOCOM 2 was my favorite game ever but there came a point where even I got tired of it and wanted something new, even if it wasn't as good.

 

[Glass Joe]

It's been mentioned several times but I have to echo the sentiment: Games were expensive and parents would be pissed if they spent $50 on a game (in 1980's money!) for little Billy to beat it and be bored with it in an afternoon. It was a way to increase replay value, since only so much level design could fit on a cart. Some poor development and bad design decisions also apply, of course. But if you bought Contra and beat it in the first hour, where's the value in that?

 

[Suzushiiro]

I find it hard to believe someone is arguing Zelda and Zelda II "aren't that hard" relative to modern Zelda. I've beaten Zelda II four or five times and it still kicks my ass sometimes. I rarely get close to dying in any modern Zelda game. I would say the puzzles aren't exactly brain benders either but it could be I'm just used to the "Zelda logic."

Yeah, it might just be rose-colored glasses affecting me there. But I'd still say that Zelda 1 and 2 were closer to current Zeldas than Battletoads, difficulty-wise. Same goes for SMB1-3.

 

[SeventhSon]

There has been nothing else said by any other member of this forum, that has made me feel as old as the above has.

Did no one identify them? I didn't because I assume they had been.

Spoiler

TMNT Dam Level and Battletoads speeder bikes

 

[filler]

Yamauchi would not approve them if they were easier, he needed us to suffer.

 

[b3b0p]

Short. Fun. Replay-ability, "One more try!"

Games now, most of the ones I have played:

1. Too easy.
2. Controls too complex. Too many buttons. Too many special moves to remember. It isn't fun if I have to memorize and study all this shit. I just want to fucking play dammit!

I don't think TMNT or BT is as hard as Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The boss in this game is nearly unbeatable.

Double Dragon 3 was another game that was hard as fuck. I beat DD 1 and 2 no problem. I could never battle through 3.

Still harder than most of the stuff out now.

 

[kinggroin]

Did no one identify them? I didn't because I assume they had been.

Spoiler

TMNT Dam Level and Battletoads speeder bikes

I just naively assumed being a gamer on a core centric gaming forum...you knew what those two games were, regardless of age.

 

[Freshmaker]

Because games werent made for babies back then. Games might as well play themselves these days.

Mainly because Nintendo feared game rentals and mandated that the games be ball breakingly difficult to force people to buy the games in order to beat them.

They weren't really designed the way they were for for any reason but that.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Yeah, it might just be rose-colored glasses affecting me there. But I'd still say that Zelda 1 and 2 were closer to current Zeldas than Battletoads, difficulty-wise. Same goes for SMB1-3.

I'd say that Battletoads was easier than Zelda if you had decent memory, good reflexes, and went into both games blind with no external resources to help you.

Mainly because Nintendo feared game rentals and mandated that the games be ball breakingly difficult to force people to buy the games in order to beat them.

They weren't really designed the way they were for for any reason but that.

This is at least partly revisionist history, as a lot of early NES games were made easier than their JP counterparts for different reasons. The rental issue didn't come until later.

 

[SeventhSon]

I just naively assumed being a gamer on a core centric gaming forum...you knew what those two games were, regardless of age.

Me too. :/

 

[Manmademan]

I just naively assumed being a gamer on a core centric gaming forum...you knew what those two games were, regardless of age.

usually you want to tag the games when you post a picture, but in this case both are NES games, and one has a battletoad in it, and the other has a ninja turtle in it. It shouldn't be that hard to figure out.

we're just old.

 

[mktrOOp]

I played recently three NES games on my 3DS:

1. Mega Man: Doable and "fair", but hard. Mega Man is a fun game! Therefore I'll buy Mega Man II next week.
2. Ninja Gaiden: I don't like the spawning enemies; the end boss is a joke and I won't be able to beat this game EVER.
3. Ghosts 'n Goblin: No, no, no.

 

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

To extend the play time and make the game feel longer

NES games in particular did this a lot

What is the difference between making a game feel longer and just making it longer?

 

[Freshmaker]

I'd say that Battletoads was easier than Zelda if you had decent memory, good reflexes, and went into both games blind with no external resources to help you.


This is at least partly revisionist history, as a lot of early NES games were made easier than their JP counterparts for different reasons. The rental issue didn't come until later.

Early games? You mean games designed before the rental market fully emerged?

Compare Zelda 2 JP to Zelda 2 NA and try to tell me that the NA version was easier with a straight face.

 

[Downhome]

The TMNT difficulty is so overblown. I had that game on release and I played the ever living hell out of it growing up. I still love the game. Yes, the seaweed part was a challenge, but it was very possible to get through it with one turtle after learning your way around the level. For those of you who haven't ever tried it out, don't let the talk about it being so mindblowingly difficult scare you off. It's a very solid NES game, even if nothing like the ones that came after it.

 

[Ranger X]

1- Games were made by gamers for gamers back then. It was about challenge.
2- Arcade mentality
3- Difficulty to compensate amount of content
4- Game Design was a young art.


Not like it ended up better today....

1- Games made for casual sessions, easy is the way to go
2- Tutorial mentality. Hold the player by the hand! feed him right in the mouth
3- Filler content to extend instead quality game design or difficulty
4- Game Design is generally speaking the only truly positive thing I guess.

 

[Deleted member 284]

This is another example that always comes up that's always puzzled me too. The game literally tells you how to land, leading you by the hand to do it. What's so hard about it?

I mean, even look at that .gif - it's telling you to "speed down" and he's speeding up. What does he expect to happen?

Have you ever played this game? Even with the computer telling you what to do, the numbers would constantly change. There was nothing you could do to hold a constant speed, trajectory or angle. My poor NES pad.

Edit: Nevermind, apparently, your a wizard.

 

[FyreWulff]

The programmers themselves were also the designers, and they played the game over and over again as they built it, and kept ramping up the difficulty so it'd be difficult for them as they got experienced with the game.

 

[PKrockin]

Yeah, it might just be rose-colored glasses affecting me there. But I'd still say that Zelda 1 and 2 were closer to current Zeldas than Battletoads, difficulty-wise. Same goes for SMB1-3.

Well, it didn't take me that much longer to beat Battletoads than it did Zelda II. Both games took many lives from me, moreso Battletoads obviously because of the instant death obstacles and many extra lives you can earn. On the other hand I've never seen the game over screen of any modern Zelda game. I've run low on hearts once in a while but still had fairies in reserve, and I maybe got close to actual death in the final fight of OoT and in the cave of ordeals in TP.

 

[Dunan]

I must be in the minority, because when I go back and play childhood classics again, I'm a lot better at them than I was back in the day.

I remember struggling with Super Mario Bros. as a child; picked it up again as an over-30 adult and reached world 3-1 without dying. Pac Man and Ms. Pac Man were tough games as a small child; tried them again in college when they brought in some arcade machines, and I played like a pro, eating all four ghosts several times (something that would have been a major achievement to do once at age 6).

Sometimes I think games back then were "harder" because as a young medium, we players hadn't picked up the generalized video-game skills that we now have. Even manipulating a control pad was something that you almost never had occasion to do in the '80s; now we've all done it for so many years and in so many ways that those of us who grew up in the '80s probably have thumb-based reaction times that would make our childhood selves drool with envy.

 

[Manmademan]

Early games? You mean games designed before the rental market fully emerged?

Compare Zelda 2 JP to Zelda 2 NA and try to tell me that the NA version was easier with a straight face.

That one didn't pass the smell test with me (I KNOW some NES games were harder in the US) so I went to TV tropes:

The Adventures of Bayou Billy - In the western version, anything in the driving stages causes the player's jeep to explode in one hit. The Japanese version (Mad City) just takes a chunk of life away. And this is one example. As a rule of thumb, anything that would help you is halved (like your attack and defense), and anything that would hamper you is doubled (like enemies' attack and defense) when compared to Mad City.

Battletoads - The Japanese version is a bit easier than the western releases, which is not saying much. Notably, Level 3 has lots of extra jump ramps, no midair ramps (and completely removed the island jumping section with the flashing exclamation mark) and doesn't speed up at the very end; similarly, the Hypno-orb in Level 11 moves slower. The player also has 5 lives per continue by default (instead of 3), which requires a cheat code to enable in other versions of the game.

Castlevania - The original Disk System version in Japan (Akumajō Dracula) not only had a save feature, but also gave out morning stars earlier. The 1993 Japanese cartridge re-release took out the save feature, but added an "Easy" mode which starts the player off with more lives and power-ups. Yeah. that's right. They just LEFT OUT the save function for US castlevania.

Contra and Super C - The Japanese versions of both games had a Stage Select code. The ten-lives code in Super C was originally a thirty-lives code in the Japanese version as well.

Double Dragon II: The Revenge - The Japanese version has standard names for its three difficulty settings (Easy, Normal and Difficult), while the American version gives them fancier labels (Practice, Warrior and Supreme Master). Whereas the Japanese version features unlimited continues and allows the entire game to be played on any difficulty, the American version requires cheat codes to continue and restricts the game's length based on the setting (the easiest setting lasts only three stages, whereas the final stage is only accessible on the hardest level). There are other specific differences between the two versions as well: the disappearing platforms in Mission 6 are much easier in the Japanese version's Easy and Normal modes than in the American version's Warrior setting, while enemies have more health in the Japanese version's hardest setting than in its American equivalent.

 

[davepoobond]

Because games werent made for babies back then. Games might as well play themselves these days.

Games were made for men not girls (too)

 

[Sixfortyfive]

The TMNT difficulty is so overblown. I had that game on release and I played the ever living hell out of it growing up. I still love the game. Yes, the seaweed part was a challenge, but it was very possible to get through it with one turtle after learning your way around the level. For those of you who haven't ever tried it out, don't let the talk about it being so mindblowingly difficult scare you off. It's a very solid NES game, even if nothing like the ones that came after it.

I thought it was a pretty bad game all in all, but not because of that level. I don't even think I ever died on that level. It was something that was pretty easy once you knew how to do it, and I had the advantage of seeing a neighbor show me how to beat it before I ever played it.

I'm continually confused as to why it always shows up in these threads.

Early games? You mean games designed before the rental market fully emerged?

Compare Zelda 2 JP to Zelda 2 NA and try to tell me that the NA version was easier with a straight face.

I'm just saying that it varied by game. Mario 3 and Mega Man 2 are two popular examples that come to mind right away.

 

[aaaaaa]

Here's what designers did a lot of the time:

"Mario is popular, so let's make a platformer. We'll give the main character the ability to take more hits. Might as well throw more enemies in to balance it out."

Game is released. Players try to jump over a pit and get hit by birds or bones or robots or whatever, knocking them into the pit and killing them instantly. Whoops, Nintendo Hard!

 

[Htown]

less storage and memory space, so games had to rely on challenge to deliver value, instead of covering up easy gameplay with beautiful art assets

 

[terrisus]

Compared to something like Final Fantasy VII, it may as well be Battletoads.

Well, that's more a matter of Final Fantasy 7 being absurdly easy.

 

[AcceptableGhost]

Older games looked up to arcade games for inspiration - which were games that were made to be completable in one session and to be immediately interesting, replayable, and able to be mastered (which generally leads to games you would call difficult).

 

[Manmademan]

Well, that's more a matter of Final Fantasy 7 being absurdly easy.

with the exception of 1, 13, and Tactics, you can run through the entire FF series without seeing a game over screen relatively easily.

 

[antitrop]

Well, that's more a matter of Final Fantasy 7 being absurdly easy.

Yeah. It is, one of the easiest ever. However, they both came out right around the same time, so it was valid for comparison.

 

[terrisus]

Have you ever played this game? Even with the computer telling you what to do, the numbers would constantly change. There was nothing you could do to hold a constant speed, trajectory or angle. My poor NES pad.

Edit: Nevermind, apparently, your a wizard.

To be fair, I flew a plane by the time I was 10 as well. Granted I never landed on an aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean, but nonetheless.

 

[terrisus]

Yeah. It is, one of the easiest ever. However, they both came out right around the same time, so it was valid for comparison.

Yeah, it's a valid comparison, but, I don't think the result of the comparison is to say that "Quest 64 is hard," but to say "Final Fantasy 7 is easy."
Maybe "Quest 64 is hard in comparison to Final Fantasy 7," but other than that.

 

[Jack_AG]

This thread has given me new ambition to eBay a few carts and beat them without looking shit up. I fixed my 72-pin a bit ago and this should provide great entertainment until PS4 hits.

I don't know if my body is ready for the "difficulty" of a few games here but I'm sure as shit going to try.

 

[Manmademan]

This thread has given me new ambition to eBay a few carts and beat them without looking shit up. I fixed my 72-pin a bit ago and this should provide great entertainment until PS4 hits.

I don't know if my body is ready for the "difficulty" of a few games here but I'm sure as shit going to try.

Pick up Milon's secret castle, you'll either thank me or break your NES. Don't read the instructions! just go in dry

 

[terrisus]

Glad to see a good number of reasonable posts in here.

What slays me are phrases like "artificial difficulty" and "artificial play time". I feel like I'm seeing these pop up more often but maybe they've always been there. Talk about a twisted perspective.

Indeed, I never remember hearing those terms back then, and only recall hearing them over the past couple of years.

Then, we just looked at it as a challenge to overcome, and was part of the reason we enjoyed the game.
Now, it seems to be more of a "Press A to Win" type of setup, and that's boring.

 

["D"]

I remember the Mega Man series being kinda hard too, just to get through the damn STAGE. If you had the boss' weakness though then getting to them was s breath of fresh air after dealing with regenerating enemies and all that bullshit the stages threw at you.

 

[Jack_AG]

Pick up Milon's secret castle, you'll either thank me or break your NES. Don't read the instructions! just go in dry

Challenge accepted.

 

[PsionBolt]

Many games were released which were great and totally fair, so it can't have had to do with technical restrictions or the youth of the medium. Because the almost all of the great games were entirely fair, it also doesn't seem likely that anyone legitimately thought unfairness was a good thing, either.

When a generation produces games like Mega Man 2 and Super Mario Bros. 3, there's really no excuse for putting out titles that are unfair or just plain bad. The only explanations I can think of are a lack of either care or skill on the part of the developers.