Were retro games actually hard or is it just the reliance on save states and rewind that has absolutely neutered our ability to overcome challenges?I totally swore off save states, rewind, cheats, and other bullshit a few years back and it's like my skills just instantly improved massively and now I see how easy these games are. Once you've got some under your belt, it's like nothing gives you an issue
>>11990389Older games didnt have yellow paint everywhere so I don't know where to go.....
>>11990389I don't blame save states, I blame people playing too much modern vidya and too little retro vidya. Playing too much modern vidya is proven to turn you into an idiot.
>>11990389It generally depends. Sometimes games are harder when you aren't familiar with them. Sometimes things feel easier because years of hindsight taught devs lessons that made things intuitive. Sometimes it's a generational thing: games from before your time will feel so hard they're unplayable and new games will feel too easy, but the games you grew up with will feel natural and just right. The amount of times you play a game and how well you understand it can also have a big impact on how good or bad you are at it.AAA omni games tend to be piss easy because they have to appeal to absolutely everyone all of the time, but there are still some pretty challenging modern games if you know where to look.Picrel is actually an interesting example, because Max Payne 1 is much harder than Max Payne 2, even though they're both relatively old.
>>11990389the hardest thing about retro games was that BS when you die to a boss fight for and you'll have to:>watch the game over screen>game sends you back to the opening menu>reload the save game>spend a couple of minutes walking past monsters to reach the boss location>watch a long ass unskippable cutscene>re-fight the first phase of the boss again>now you can get to the actual shitand if you die you'll have to restart this shit all over again games like Ys Ark Of Niphistim fixed this shit by letting you restart boss fights (without re-watching cutscenes) whenever you die
Difficulty is not as obvious of a concept as it seems.New games can be difficult, but they tend to pamper the player so that getting to the tough parts feels more natural.Older games tend to just throw you in, and only repetition can help.General difficulty has also gone down. Not in the sense that there are less hard games, rather the default settings are now geared towards casuals. This should not be mistaken for lower difficulty. If the setting called normal is a lot easier than in earlier games, it does not matter as long as the hardest setting (now likely called some shit like expert or retro) is as hard as prior hard settings.
>>11990449thought you described dark souls there for a minute
>>11990389what era are we talking about if you say retro? 5th and 6th gen are absolutely fine if you're not booting up some bullshit like Tomb Raider that has absolutely atrocious controls (and even that game i would say is absolutely doable).the real problems were the games in the 4th gen and earlier. there was virtually no balancing idea or a feeling for gameplaytechnical intricacies. games weren't really hard, moreover devs didn't know how to properly design them. and some even intentionally dialed up the difficulty to be a real coin eater in the arcades. save states and rewinds are doing jack shit to your skills. if anything it's acting as a "training mode" to lab a specific instance in a game more efficiently instead of redoing the part by rebooting the spot and traversing all the way back to it
>or is it just the reliance on save states and rewind that has absolutely neutered our ability to overcome challengesYou do realize that most people savestate AFTER they accomplished beating a challenge, right?DumbassFurthermore, the games were as hard as possible in order to extend the playtime of the game, as most NES games really only had around 15 to 20 minutes of content at max
>>11990587>You do realize that most people savestate AFTER they accomplished beating a challenge, right?>DumbassStop lying you fucking seething zoomermuttUse your save states, if you need them so much. What you eat doesn't make me shit
>>11990609>Playing the same part hundreds of times is """"""""challenge""""""""
>>11990389They weren't, people just like to jerk themselves off
>>11990587>You do realize that most people savestate AFTER they accomplished beating a challenge, right?Without savestates and continues you have to beat the whole game with only as many failures allowed as the devs let you get away with. You need to be good enough at a section to beat it regularly if you wanna be able to practice the next section, and can't be having a bad day. With savestates you only need to be good enough to beat a section once, even if it was a fluke and you'd never be able to do it again.
>>11990630>Playing the same part hundreds of times is """"""""challenge""""""""Yeah, no shit... And the fact that it takes you "hundreds of times" just shows you are a complete shitter who is a helpless baby without the crutch of your cheats and save states. Playing a game with rewind/save states is like watching a classic film for the first time on 4x speed.But again, the whole point is that these games really AREN'T all that difficult, if you actually play them as intended. It's just retarded zoomermutts, raised on save states and modern AAA games, who view these retro games as icky, clunky, and archaic, despite refusing to even understand or play them in the context in which they released. Read the manual, take your time, focus and pay attention to your surroundings, actually learn and master the game, and maybe you'll start to understand the appeal of these games beyond just cheap, mindless, disposable button mashing.
>>11990630>>11990587What games are even talking about? Battletoads? GnG?This doesn't apply to like 99% of games, even on NES.
>>11990685>>11990686>Still mistaking tedium and repetition for challenge
Funnily the game in op pic let's you save scum before every room and encourages it. Maybe the most genuine way to play it would be playing it like people who didn't realize you can quicksave so if you die you just restart the level.But some retro games are pretty unforgiving, like I guess every GTA before V. SA and IV had some long multipart missions and there just were no checkpoints at all. There might have been a button to skip some driving where nothing happens on retries but not much else.
>>11990708>it's only real difficulty if there is zero tension, zero stakes, and zero consequences for failure>it's only real difficulty if I can just rewind every single mistake>it's only real difficulty if consistency doesn't matter and I can just brute-force each tiniest piecemeal part of a section until I finally succeed
>>11990708>I somehow got lucky and beat a section, quick, save state so that I never have to do it again!
>>11990576Zoomie post.>>11990708Beat it again if you're so good. Not only that, beat that section again without dying, losing health, and/or conserving more resources for future harder sections.>>11990686Good post.
>>11990389I dont think any retro game is hard if you get checkpoints between levels or worlds, its just a matter of learning.I only think Retro games start to get hard when you only get 3 guys and no continues. Fuck that arcade mentality, I can't stand shit like contra that makes you start at the very beginning of the game. It feels like so much more of a frustrating slog of a grind to learn those games.
>>11990576I was talking about 3rd and 4th gen mostly. Even 4th gen is already a massive step down in difficulty. And even 3rd gen seems easy compared to arcade games of the era (although many of those had unlimited continues)
>>11990708triggered the people who don't even play games lol
The damage that Kaizo Mario did to gaming is still present.
>>11990725>it's only real difficulty if I have to redo the same stages over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over because the devs wanted you to take months to play through 15 minutes of content>it's only real difficulty if I can just rewind every single mistake by getting a game over and starting again>it's only real difficulty if consistency doesn't matter and I can just brute-force each tiniest piecemeal part of a section until I finally succeed when I get to itCope harder and touch grass. I'm over here reaching the ending of 12 games before you even reach 1
>>11990389I've only ever used save states in lieu of managing passwords like in the NES Mega Man games or after boss fights in Donkey Kong Country. Never really had the lack of self control to savescum everything or reqind after every death. Still too casual to 1cc arcade games though.
>>11990846>wanted you to take months to play through 15 minutes of contentAgain, WHAT FUCKING GAME ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?Ninja Gaiden, Castlevania, Mega Man, Zelda, Super Mario Bros, Contra, Shatterhand, Metroid, Sonic, Streets of Rage 2, Gunstar Heroes, Shinobi, DKC, TMNT, Mega Man X, etc.All these fucking games can be beat easily by a first time player on original hardware in under a week, and many in a single day or single sitting. If you actually try to PLAY the game instead of spamming rewind and save states like a spastic, you might actually just learn and appreciate them.>Cope harder and touch grass. I'm over here reaching the ending of 12 games before you even reach 1And there it is. The "backlog" zoomer, more obsessed with ticking a box rather than actually enjoying and understanding the appeal of what he's playing. Fucking faggot.
>>11990389>Were retro games actually hardNo, but challenge used to be a selling feature. Now it's the opposite.
>>11990846>I'm over here reaching the ending of 12 games before you even reach 1Hint: watch the game on youtube at 2x speed and you can experience games even faster.
>>11990861Yea this is a bizarre statement. I do love racking up beating games, that’s fun and all, but if the game is really good and engrossing then I want to stay in that world for as long as possible which may extended may length of play instead of speed running through games like shoving down fine cuisine and delicious steaks and being like, yup I ate it faster I’m better than you! Like, do you even enjoy the games your blasting through?
>>11990850Le first time gaymer is not beating any of those in one sitting and yeah, one week is 168 hours, so with an extremely large amount of time I should expect that to be possible, despite hower rhetoric and stupid this whole discussion is.
>>11990923>Le first time gaymer is not beating any of those in one sitting not first time ever playing a videogame, just first time playing those games (but some experience with retro games in general) >one week is 168 hours, so with an extremely large amount of timeclearly I don't mean playing literally 24 hours every day. Even just a few hours a day and an average player can beat most of those games in a week
>>11990852Shame.
>>11990389The games aren't actually hard. It's just that the children playing them are retarded.
>>11990984Yes, it is a shame that it's gotten so bad.
>>11990389>Were retro games actually hardMost of them were not. Newer games tend to be even easier though.
>>11990413this in generalyou have to get accustomed to retro games if you've play any extent of modern games for a period of timepeople also have a problem of playing 10 minutes of a game and saying 'this sucks' or 'the controls blow' and it's like play for an hour atleast jesus christ
>>11990389"retro games are hard" was always a meme imo. they're piss easy 90% of the time and you'd only think otherwise because you remember struggling with them when you were a dumb kid who didn't know any better.at the end of the day difficulty is subjective.
Unironically, I'd have to say all of the hardest things I've ever had to do in games were from more modern ones, 6th gen and up. There's some hard shit in retro games but nothing I've never been able to overcome after a few tries, mostly because the complexity ceiling is pretty low. For example theres a number of Kingdom Hearts bosses on critical mode that I'd say are way harder than any NES game out there in it's totality.
>>11990576 sevs didn't know how to properly design games before 5th genOne of the most ridiculous baits I've seen on neo/vr/, congrats.
>>11990389it's complicated. the most stark difference between now and the 8/16 bit era is the arcade limited continue back to title screen format being fairly common. completing a game absolutely is much harder when you can't take for granted permanent progress, the easiest of easy arcade based games like sonic the hedgehog, streets of rage 2 and super mario bros are still probably a good deal above average in terms of getting to the end credits when compared to non arcade based games.when that distinction goes away the difference in difficulty shrinks a lot. games back then could be less friendly to the player and more opaque but completion being essentially guaranteed if you're willing to invest an extra couple hours redooing tricky sections is the same between the old and new, if you exclude arcade format games.
Yes, if you don't use your skills, you lose them. If you play time waster games all the time, like I fell into with MMOs in the 2000s, you lose your skills at real games. But you'll pick them back up if you start playing them again.There's no "retro game difficulty" though. Donkey Kong Country is easy. Super Ghouls and Ghosts is insane. Truxton is impossible.
>>11993318>Donkey Kong Country is easy. Super Ghouls and Ghosts is insane. Truxton is impossible.Bullshit, literally the complete opposite.
>>11990389they were hard because they were designed based on arcade games, which were meant to devour quarters. So good fucking riddance to the concept of "lives".
>>11990685You don't even have to be good enough to beat it once with savestates. It's tool assisted so you can fuck up as you please and not even play by the failure conditions of that specific segment. A person using save states has no self control so their last checkpoint is going to be like 5 seconds ago and not one stage ago.
>>11991671No critical KH boss comes close to the hardest NES games. Critical Yozora is not even in the same league as Arkanoid, Adventure Island or Ikari Warriors.
>>11993428adventure island wasn't that hard, get over yourself old man.
>>11990390SAVE ME NIGGERMAN THERES NO CUM ON THE FLOOR, IM LOST AND WITHOUT DIRECTION NOOOOO
>>11990850Completely true post but you're arguing with an unensouled golemoid unfortunately
>>11993318spolier alert: you never had any skills
I don't remember people having issues with finishing the temple in Fallout 2 without hints or cheats back in 1998.
>>11990389Save states are amazing for practicing hard parts so that you can do a no death run later. Just don't use them as a crutch.
>>11993436People say this about Adventure Island and Ikari Warriors and 100/100 times they cheated with the Hudson Bee or ABBA. Contra is easier too when you cheat with the Konami Code.
>>11990389>I totally swore off save states, rewind, cheats, and other bullshit a few years back and it's like my skills just instantly improved massively and now I see how easy these games are. Once you've got some under your belt, it's like nothing gives you an issueThank you.This is the thing savestaters don't realize. Savestates do NOT fucking help you in the long run. You are NOT "saving time" by using savestates or some other bs you're telling you. Because if you don't use them, you're forced to get good. Once you get good, the things that used to be an issue and require of you a savestate, won't be an issue anymore.Anyway yes, generally speaking the difficulty of games has been on a downward slope since forever.
>>11993418you are an idiot
>>11993802>You are NOT "saving time" by using savestates or some other bs you're telling you. Because if you don't use them, you're forced to get good. Once you get good, the things that used to be an issue and require of you a savestate, won't be an issue anymore.It's like using training wheels. Yeah, you won't stumble and fall at first, but if you insist on never taking off the training wheels you will NEVER be as fast and proficient as someone who took them off because they get in the way.
>>11993802Saved
>>11993802@Grok, explain this image
>>11990389I restarted playing Retro Games after I fixed my PsP, I installed a lot of Emulators and playing some games IG and I started to use Save states but I use them more as stage selectors or infact save games more than exploit, but I understand what you mean, I think that at the time with the real console I would've learned how to play the game and even doen it right but with save state I suppose is better just because I can save and later replay where i left, with games where there is no password system is perfect, like Castlevania for NES or Splatter house for Turbografix 16. I just finished them, but I felt that it were good games, good challenges and with save states is not even that punitive and a really good game. ( I always saved at the start of the stages never in middle or during a fight or similar, except the final stage of splatter house that was fucking brutal but after trial and error i learned to walk slow and jump). I felt like the game was one of the modern system it's like I felt a "empty victory" like I completed it, its a good game, but i didn't beat it like the console intended. What I mean with this post is that yeah old games are hard and save states make them let's say easier but not easy, it just give an edge to beat it.Now I'm playing the castlevania saga, i'm at Simon Quest.
Savestates ruin your enjoyment of the game.
>>11990390Most older games still funneled you to right direction.It was just a lot more discreet.Paint blotches are just the most noticeable and lazy map design.
>>11994154Some older games literally have an arrow pointing.
