/vr/ - Retro Games

I just want to mention the trend with Konami difficulty rebalances. So far, I have seen that its ALMOST always the later release which is harder. So, for example, Contra in the US is easier, but that's because that was the original release of the game. Super C released in Japan before US, and so the Japanese version is easier (mainly, gives 30 lives if you do the konami code and has a stage select) because its the first release of the game. I have yet to find a game by retro-Konami that tones down the difficulty of the second chronological release EXCEPT for arcade Simpsons in Japan, which was made easier maybe because the Japanese machine was 2-player only? (I can't find a rom of a 4-player, Japan-version of Simpsons).

Its just strange. On top of this, they have versions of some games made specifically for the PAL market, so as in not just the visuals have been changed but the gameplay has been subtly rebalanced as well, like with Castlevania 3 in PAL territories it has slightly different balancing from the US version, which is balanced differently from the original Japanese release. Some stuff follows reason, some stuff just doesn't, even factoring things into account like "oh, well, in the US there were rentals so they were taking that into account" doesn't really add up if you really look into it.