Why were the older system games(NES, Sega Genesis, etc.) so hard?

[Reyn 1,755]

I was always wondering why they made those games so ridiculously hard back then. Look at games like the original Aladdin(Sega Gen) or the original Kid Icarus(NES) and you can tell how hard those games were back then.

 

Why would they do that to the players?

[Weiss 8,279]

Have you ever heard of people who grew up with the old games saying "Games nowadays are too easy"?

They've gotten easier over time and thus the hard difficulty and everything after it was made to challenge more experienced gamers. They were just that way back then although some games from that time weren't too challenging.

[The_eternal_nothing 586]

play i wanna be the guy thats a old school style game but probobly harder than any old school game you could throw at me

[Setrex 1,031]

Poor controls played a part in some games but I think it's really just a case of games nowadays being too easy. I found a lot of old games to be challenging and that was part of the fun (regardless of frustration). I guess nowadays if some people find a game to be too hard they just ragequit and leave the game to gather dust but I dunno it really just depends on the person's capability of playing the difficult game. I bet there are people out there that don't even find games like Demon Souls or Dark Souls hard games even if they are regarded as two very difficult and challenging games in this generation of consoles. Who knows.

[Elrandir 783]

Yeah. Old games were harder than most actual ones. With the current generations of gaming consoles it's all about graphics, not actual gaming experience, most of the time, of course.

 

Best game from my childhood! 8D

 

 

 

Edited April 20, 2013 by Elrandir

[Hei 3,233]

It's actually better that way, you have rely on skill rather a 30 minute tutorial teaching you how to jump n' shoot. Games nowadays are easier, but there are quite a few that still are uber difficult (DEMON SOULS).

 

I own a ton of retro consoles, including the ones you mentioned lol So yeah

[SquareSora 133]

Many factors played a role in this statement. 1 was that back the the controls were demening and lacking of proper structure. 2 cause of the graphics they sucked. and 3 the game companies may have done that intentionally trying to amuse the gamers.

[Jilly Shears 2,144]

It was to hide the fact that you only had a limited number of levels or whatever. Plus, games back then ran about $60 even then, so you still have to get your money's worth from something that could be cleared in a few hours.The solution? Make it as difficult as all get out. That way, you feel like you've accomplished so much since you can't just blow through it all willy-nilly.EDIT: I mean, look at how much content games have nowadays. Would you really feel comfortable paying $50 for Super Mario Bros. if it literally was released nowadays as a new game?

Edited April 20, 2013 by JillSandwich93

[waffle 82]

they did not have very much space on the game cart so had to make games harder in order to make them last longer

[Caity 3,946]

Well.

People complained the older ones were too hard to complete so didn't chose to buy them

 

So they made them easier and easier for beginners

 

and added difficulty settings like Hard/Proud/Critical/Nightmare for those who could conquer the challenge.  

they did not have very much space on the game cart so had to make games harder in order to make them last longer

 

^ and this.  

[jjennway 207]

I've noticed nowadays games are shorter, easier, and less time is spent developing them. I'm pretty sure they've gotten worse due to the lack of time spent in development.

[SSGoten 59]

To make it feel like you got your money's worth. Now-a-days it's "Oh, you beat our 6 hour campaign? Now go waste a whole month on multiplayer." or "Oh, you beat the game? Now replay it to get all the trophies, and wait for DLC." or a mixture of both. They were so hard because they wanted to have fun playing that game you bought because they didn't want you to feel ripped off. They actually cared back then.

[LordOfTheCastle 92]

A lot of them weren't hard, they were just bullshit because they didn't realize how to make a proper game yet.Look at Castlevania on the NES: if the enemies didnt knock you down pits when you got hurt, the game would be easy.If the D-Pad was more responsive in Zelda 1 itd be a lot easier.If hit detection was better Zelda II would be better.It's usually simple mistakes that build up a lot of problems and make them harder. It also took longer to beat the game so it felt like you didnt waste your money, as people have already said ^^

[Captain Arrowguns 466]

I'm guessing that originally, they made arcade games really hard so that you would fork over more of your allowance money in order to master the game. So when consoles first came out, they simply continued the tradition. It wasn't until later that the big game companies discovered they could make more money if their games were easier and thus more approachable.

[xxClouDxxmoon 901]

I miss those days, games actually focused on the game...

[Dio Brando 5,810]

Man,back in the gold old days were video games were actually video games.Not a 1-hour tutorial and 9 hours of cutscenes.

 

I miss the days were great games like Megaman and Super Mario World were taking the world by storm.

 

Nowadays,developers throw 90% of the development budget on making the "Beauty Queen" graphics with little to no focus on good story and gameplay.

 

Sure some were hard because of bad controls,but some of them were legitimately challenging even with good controls like the Megaman games.

 

 

This console gen was the most offensive in terms of easy games.

 

lots of FPS games that requires nothing from you other than being a bullet sponge and blindly shooting everything in sight.

 

And some RPGs became a lot easier to the point one of the bosses in FFXIII-2 was easier than freakin BROCK from Pokemon RedBlueYellow.

 

Why in this gen developers began to completely forget the point of playing video games???

[Rob 5,571]

I love all this talk about back in the day. But yeah, everyone above pretty much summed it up.

[Setrex 1,031]

Many factors played a role in this statement. 1 was that back the the controls were demening and lacking of proper structure. 2 cause of the graphics they sucked. and 3 the game companies may have done that intentionally trying to amuse the gamers.

Graphics don't determine a great game and never will.

[Hei 3,233]

You should go play the original Castlevania or Mega Man, there totally not hard wink wink

[Sora96 17,256]

Comes down to personal opinion mate. I had no problem with Sega games from the '90s.

[CloakedSchemerX 1,011]

You should go play the original Castlevania or Mega Man, there totally not hard wink wink

Castlevania 2....nngh.

[YouruncleGreg 0]

On 4/20/2013 at 7:16 PM, Reyn said:

I was always wondering why they made those games so ridiculously hard back then. Look at games like the original Aladdin(Sega Gen) or the original Kid Icarus(NES) and you can tell how hard those games were back then.

 

Why would they do that to the players?

Because they didn't beta test their games. The devs just slapped together some heaping helpings of stuff, put it in a box and let it roll.

Also back then they didn't really understand how 'rage quitters' could have a negative impact on their sales, when they put the game back, get a full refund, and then tell others not to buy the game. This hurts their marketing. Corporations want to migitage as many refunds as possible, and keep profits...Not have 40 people like the game and 10 ask for refunds, to businesses that's not a successful business platform, they can't look past that being a problem later on in the future. 

And so, they make their games easily accessable to everybody so that they can keep that profit, even if they lose old players, they continue to get a circulation of new profits.