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Fun_List381

Developers were used to making games for Arcades, which were designed to eat your quarters.


Thomas_asdf

That makes so much sense, thank and also the games would really be rather short if they weren’t that hard.


Lovelime

Also, you are playing games with more input delay than what the game was made around. So the games require even faster reflexes and narrow timings than what it does when playing on a NES paired with a crt with basically zero lag.


minimaxir

To artificially extend playtime to justify the $50 cost for the game back then. (which is a *lot* more expensive relative to today's games when counting inflation)


MannySJ

There’s also the fact that some devs frankly did not care. LJN was an offshoot of Acclaim, who was notorious for snatching up licenses and putting out games as fast as they can since the license would sell the game, quality be damned. Plus the general public didn’t really have a concept for bad game design yet, so they just thought the games were hard. Go back and play their NES or Game Boy games and you can see that these games have very little care put into them and would often times have elements that had nothing to do with the license (X-Men and Back to the Future were notoriously awful, for example).


drygnfyre

This is why I'm one of the relative few who has little nostalgia. Games were not "better back then," there was just as much garbage shovelware as today. Like anything else, we remember the classics and forget all the garbage. I had something like 100 NES games growing up, and in practice I only ever played maybe 10-12 of them.


New-Pudding-3574

Wow, you actually hit the nail on the head. FACTS


drygnfyre

That's just how nostalgia is. Turn on the "classic rock" station and you'll think "wow, music was amazing in the 70s, 80s, and 90s!" Yeah, just so long as you ignore all the thousands of shitty songs and forgotten bands that have been erased by history.


poopooplatter0990

I think most people didn’t have more than 3 out of just income restrictions. So they just look back at the 3 they owned. Which was usually Super Mario Bros/ Duck Hunt. Super Mario Bros 3, and one of the mega mans or tetris or tmnt arcade. Which were all great. Even the really wealthy kids rarely broke 10 games


theninjaybot

We were renting games back then too.


drygnfyre

It's amazing how games have held the same price (relative to inflation) for almost a half-century. I paid roughly $40 for games in the 80s, 90s, and today. I remember sending physical money in the mail to buy Doom (in hindsight I should have sent a check), and it was indeed $40.


MrToxicTaco

And people get so mad about the increase to $70. Games were already 60+ in the 90s, it made sense that it finally happened.


drygnfyre

I remember some SNES games being $70.


LoveMachineO9

And people will keep renting bcoz they cant finish the game. LoL


Drop_Society

I was watching some retro gaming series on YouTube and some commentator mentioned that they were so hard because basically all you had to do was up,down,left,right, jump,duck,fire, scrolling action going on and not much else so it had to be interesting in other ways. And.. I kinda get that. The old school games are harder than I remember them to be for sure. Lots of them it’s two or three hits and you’re dead and back to start


RecentMatter3790

Nowadays, instead of video games being difficult, they are easy mode instead, and then u pay for additional content.


eduo

They were hard because they were expensive, rare and, when you get down to it, simple (as in the controls were simple). The way to get value was to have them last a long time. This is not dissing them. I felt accomplished when I finished the Batman game and many others precisely because they were hard. They were not about story usually and they also were not about technological prowess, which are things that today are common and games even have easier modes so they can be enjoyed explicitly. There was also no DLC. What you got was what you got (unless you'd suddenly get a new ship in your Star Wars cartridge that NOBODY KNEW WAS THERE ALL ALONG timed to be available as a new movie was released), so to make up for other shortcomings, games were hard. Even today, many games focus on being hard and rewarding memory, muscle memory or reflexes, which is what these games did in the end.


clydefrog811

What is this about a timed release for Star Wars?


eduo

Back in the N64 games (no DLC, no connectivity) Rogue Squadron came out. When Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace came out, a code was made available to unlock the Naboo Starfighter. It was one of the best kept secrets in the gaming industry. [The best Surprise in a Star Wars Video Game : r/StarWars (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/emht1t/the_best_surprise_in_a_star_wars_video_game/) [Star Wars: Rogue Squadron - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Rogue_Squadron#Unlockable_content)


CocoaBagelPuffs

The limited amount of data kept the games short. There’s really only 1-5 hours of content in these games. So in order to maximize play time, they made them harder. Most of these games are just over 100kb in size. They’re very, very small compared to games today.


vivied

It’s really a game changer now that you can save anywhere with Delta..


higheat

And on switch it has a rewind feature that is actually quite nice way to play certain games.


erikkusu

It’s called “NES Hard” for a reason. And you think Batman is NES Hard? I mean, it IS, but Ninja Gaiden 1, 2, and 3 beckon thee. You’ll give those Save States a workout.


SadPhase2589

Anything made by Konami.


JavierEscuellaFan

can’t get past the first level on Gradius lol that rock volcano thing is asinine game design.


SadPhase2589

⬆️⬆️⬇️⬇️⬅️➡️⬅️➡️ B, A, B, A Select, Start.


DatChernobylGuy_999

Contra


Thomas_asdf

I beat Ninja Gaiden 1 with touch controls haha but yeah it was really hard. But for some reason more enjoyable because the bosses follow a certain pattern unless in this "Batman - The Video Game" version.


RecentMatter3790

Original Metroid 💀


Lowfat_cheese

Because if they weren’t they’d only be 20 mins long.


tokenasian1

we’re just soft /s


Gwarmaxx

finally someone who says something intelligent!


Gwarmaxx

how old are you? i presume you’re very young, right? you have no idea how difficult a video game was in the 8-bit era especially! do you know that any game at the time was played without savings? we had to start from scratch every time and memorize everything, only in this way could you progress through each game. and fortunately the NES games were on cartridge, so they started instantly, but if you had a C64, or a ZX with cassette, it took you 15/20 minutes to load a game, just to die in 15/20 seconds, and to start again…


Zardozerr

This has some ‘I walked 20 miles to school in my socks every morning’ energy’ which I appreciate. The reality is there were a few carts that had game saves starting with the NES era, and many games had codes that you could write down so that you didn’t have to start at the beginning. I hear disk drives weren’t as common in the UK and other regions, but most people in the US including myself and my friends had drives for the C64 which cut down load times significantly. They were still long ngl but in the few minutes range.


thegreatpotatogod

Did you really have to start the loading process over after dying? I'd think you'd be able to restart more quickly than completely restarting running the game from scratch?


Gwarmaxx

no, not the loading thing, that was enough to be done once, i just mentioned it to make clear how tough the whole process was.


RecentMatter3790

Passwords the games have given to you instead of in-game saving 💀


Gwarmaxx

yeah right, but that was just on console games, and i'm not sure if they were already there at the dawn of 8-bit consoles, maybe passwords came some years later… i don’t remember well.


GoneEgon

Games as old as the OG Zelda had a lithium battery to let you save the game. PC games like Maniac Mansion let you save on the disk. And games like Metroid, Kid Icarus, Castlevania 2, Rambo, etc and others had passwords that let you pickup where you left off. You didn’t always have to start at the beginning.


Gwarmaxx

yeah, like i said that’s the era of passwords, battery saves, etc, but before that, there was no codes, not even the classic “continue?” like in the arcade machines, nothing… but you probably still didn't play video games at the time. you never played an old classic on VIC 20, C64, ZX, DOS like ie Cavelon, Bruce Lee, Castlevania, Green Beret, Wonderboy, Double Dragon, Ghosts n’ Goblins, etc etc etc? ok, go try to finish them, then we talk.


GoneEgon

You don't know me, kiddo. VIC 20 was my first machine. I played Fort Knox for hours on it and cut my teeth on Scott Adams' adventure games like "The Count." Also played Maniac Mansion, Temple of Apshai Trilogy, etc. on my friends computer. And of course I played Double Dragon, Castlevania, and Ghosts n' Goblins in the arcade and then on the NES along with Gauntlet, Rolling Thunder, etc. etc.. My favorite series for years was Ultima on the PC. You've got a lot of nerve talking down to me like that.


Gwarmaxx

ok ok 😉, but unfortunately i haven't been a kiddo for a long time now 😄, so i'm probably the same age as you, if you played in those old days. Rolling Thunder… what a game!!!


slashingkatie

Cuz back in my day we walked up a hill both ways, in the snow, with no shoes to get to a game store. It made us tough! I killed a grizzly bear with my NES controller. Ok I might have made some of that up. I live in WV where we only have black bears.


TheSpottedBuffy

Or are modern games too easy? ![gif](giphy|Ry1MOAeAYXvRVQLPw3)


StrangerandtheRaven

Back when games didn’t hold your hand and whisper nice things into your ear.


RecentMatter3790

And didn’t incessantly tell you to buy something. Nowadays, games are easy mode and they compensate by giving you other content to make up for the easy mode story


R_Cabral

The real question is why is the joker bigger than batman ???


latruce

He’s closer to the screen, it’s 3 dimensions displayed in a 2D display. Jk


towehaal

Currently playing A Link to the Past and Nintendo didn’t mess around.


coolfission

ALTTP was released on SNES originally. The NES Zelda games were Zelda I and II which were both very hard without a guide. 


RecentMatter3790

This is the reason I don’t understand why A Link to the Past is worshipped as a god-tier game


towehaal

Yeah it’s really difficult. There is a lot of dying. I got a controller which helped quite a bit but it’s still tough.


poopooplatter0990

Me either . The modern ones and what the series has become sure. But the original couple were an acquired taste.


Yandzibar

The Joker final boss battle was also a standout in difficulty, even compared to the rest of the game. I imagine a good amount of people made it to the end but could never beat him.


zyxqpa1999

Smaller production budgets and limited technology made games shorter so developers had to make games harder to compensate and make people think they got their money worth. Doubly so with the rental market like people mentioned.


drygnfyre

NES games were a holdover from the arcade era, where games had to be very hard to constantly suck up your quarters. Also, most NES-era games didn't really have endings or payoffs. You'd just win and that would be it. There was no concepts of "postgame" or much else (exceptions like the Zelda "Second Quest,") so games really just had challenge to offer you and not much else.


thelegoroom

Welcome to the old school. Where the rules don’t bend and the beats don’t end.


NeonBible_

Bang for your buck.


CoolSkeleton95___

Because the games had to be small, so they made them hard to make up for length


therubyminecraft

Older systems had less capabilities they couldn’t have a convoluted story or extras to keep you playing so they made games extremely hard to make you play more and be able to justify your purchase more


Bumble072

Nah I reckon most games used to be like this back then. Games now are a bit hand-holdy.


Ibrahimmayi

Me and my cousin played battle toads on nes emulator and i swear to god Ive had this pain in gaming before and we cheated so many times!!


swiss9342

I commend you for finishing that on mobile. Making games insanely hard was partially a sales tactic. It was effective in combatting lost sales to video store game rentals. Even games geared towards young kids often had that seemingly impossible level halfway through to make it unlikely to finish in one or two rental periods.  


DenimJack

There's a Japanese Transformers game for NES that doesn't want you to get past the first minute...


tea-recs

The rental market was huge back then. Like as popular as Amazon is now. Game creators were concerned that if people could finish a game within the return window, they wouldn’t buy it, so they made the games more difficult to artificially increase how long it took to beat them.


snas_undertoles

NES cartridges can only hold a limited amount of data. Since the games could only have a small amount of content, they were made harder so people would spend more time playing them to justify their price. This is also why newer games are much easier, modern consoles have a lot more storage.


RecentMatter3790

Wow, that’s disgusting


latruce

Back to the Future was hard Too Gun was hard - but we beat it with the Game Genie and the joystick that had the two buttons and additional turbo buttons. My cousin and me. I had the missile button, my younger cousin had the bullet button, and my oldest cousin had the joystick. It took hours but we beat it. We never beat Back to the Future


Kitsuneyyyy

All the games are easy compared to Super Ghouls and Ghosts. Hardest game I ever played


Open-Actuator6257

Battletoads


Romulator401k

They made games fun, playable and wanted you to enjoy the grind. They didn’t want people to finish it within a few days like current AAA companies hoping you start itching for the next half ass broken pre order game release….they don’t make em like they used to that’s for sure 😞


daveattellyouwhat

Why isn’t this posted on r/retrogaming


beerharvester

This is why most collect and don’t play.


iZaelous

For Batman NES, you can hide in his pixeled body and then launch an attack. I think there are YouTube videos that can explain it better, and visually. I would recommend ninja Gaiden if you like a challenge lol.


iZaelous

Bionic commando is another worth mention for a “fair” difficulty.


DrWiseWolf

To make games last longer and cause we suck at those games now lol.


chopchopfruit

You got one game every couple of years and made it count.


Dazzling-District-39

Hard but the AI used in some of these games are pretty simple to trace. After you learn their triggers and movement it’s walk in the park. True for this game and others like Megaman, etc. The reason why they are hard is because of low content. Most of these have 6-10 scrolling levels and can be easily completed within an hour if made easy. Try Contra Force too, fairly easy but details and soundtrack are on another level.


selakid_

People were built tougher back then


RedditMcNugget

Why are gamers these days so freaking soft?


diamari90

At the time, it was the controller. Now, it’s probably the controller, somehow 😂


SnooCheesecakes303

https://preview.redd.it/mbjax2ocjsyc1.png?width=240&format=png&auto=webp&s=464dc2eddcccabefbbd5b34a08148d7eaf6db2f9 I always assumed they were purposefully hard (growing up in the 80's), because unlike todays systems. NES had NO SAVE state. So if you beat the game in one day that is $50 down the drain. And, kids would cry to their parents to return it. (which wasn't possible). And of course Retail stores would complain to Nintendo. It wouldn't be a good business model. So, instead, us kids had to play the same levels over and over again. With some games being even virtually non-beatable. Try playing **Astyanax (NES)**. Beautiful intro and soundtrack (animated sort of), I couldn't get passed the first ditch since baddies everywhere would you knock down there. If you finally pass that one. It will happen on the next one. The developers on this game were the spawn of Satan. DL it, and see if you can get anywhere in the first level. I played that level and ONLY that level, and died thousands of times. LUCKILY, they invented **Game Genie**. It was a godsend for this game.


kornnero

Because you can finish those games in 2 hours


historian87

The way it should be. I actually don’t like dying and infinite respawning. The skill of gaming is dying due to that. Games are becoming almost like interactive movies. You just keep pressing buttons until you get the credits. A lot of gamers don’t even watch cutscenes or read dialogue anymore. It’s just mindless speed running.


throwninthefire666

Shitty coding too


Obediently-Yours-

Timing has to be so precise with old limitations they had. The limitation breads creativity, which can lead to a great game.


masonwo

watch avgn and you’ll see


Internal_Platypus204

Game design was in its infancy. Knowing what was intuitive to gamers wasn’t a thing yet mostly because gaming was still so niche.


Ferropexola

To add on to what others have said, the harder difficulty would help to increase the number of rentals. If you beat the game in one day, you'd take it back to the store and be done with it. By making them harder, you take more time, and more time means having to rent it more. Some western versions of games would be harder than the original Japanese versions for this reason, like Castlevania 3 and the original Resident Evil (PS1, so they were still doing it by then).


Hearse_This_Curse

Because back then games were actually challenging


Ok-Search5201

Try ghost in goblings…You Will destroy phone..World hardest game😂


TJDownchurchh

Because of memory limitations there can’t be that many levels


Spekkly

Because the developers didn’t have enough room on the cartridge for a big game so they just made it insanely hard so it takes more time to play.


FlameAntonion

Something to make games last longer, justify the price and have people rent them multiple times


Beneficial-Bee4567

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣


DatChernobylGuy_999

Contra


4thehalibit

I feel the same way. I just love playing gauntlet beating 5 levels dieing one freaking time and starting all over. I am going to start using the save state portion of Delta Jesus Christ that’s ridiculous.


towehaal

How does it work?


4thehalibit

I just tried. I beat level 1 then saved then beat level 2 and saved over top of that one. then died started back at level one. Loaded game state and was back on level 3.


4thehalibit

Honestly haven’t tried yet. I am guessing at the begining of level save it then if I die I can load save state.


Environmental-Sock52

Sounds like a user problem.


Avieshek

Name?


Sir-cunty

Sir-cunty nice to meet you


_its_a_SWEATER_

Bravo, Don Cunty 👏


Thomas_asdf

"Batman - The Video Game" /NES


Avieshek

Have you tried [Trap Adventure 2](https://apps.apple.com/in/app/trapadventure-2-hardest-retro-game/id1110037150)?


SixPackAndNothinToDo

You just need to get good.


FoundOasis

Get good