ITT: When developers were straight up EVIL.

[Anonymous No.10353494]

One thing that retro video games are known for by the general public is being harder than current ones, even harder than modern titles known for their difficulty, due to one simple thing... most of them took you back to the title screen after failing too many times, and for most people that's genuinely unbearable, especially nowadays... but once you get used to it, playing retro title after retro title, it's just natural, and then something comes along with unlimited continues or passwords and it's a pleasent surprise, though some titles with unlimited continues still manage to be incredibly punishing in their own way.

Anyways, regardless of the reason, there are titles, or just small sections, that we play and genuinely wonder if it was done with malicious intent by the developers, sometimes an unexplicable difficulty spike, an extra punishing consequence for one's mistake, etc. I had the idea to make this thread because of SNES's Aladdin, it's simple if you just want to get to the end, but if you want 100% there are 10 red gems in every level, for a total of 70, getting all is how you complete the whole thing 100% really... and the last red gem, in the last jump of the last level gives you a single shot, if you miss it... you have to restart the whole thing!

I managed to pull it off, this isn't a long adventure so getting back to the last level while getting everything wasn't a huge ask, but man... it's one of the few jumps that requires a running start with the run button to even have a chance of clearing it, and then you have to jump from the very edge of the platform, and there's always the risk of falling off when doing a jump like that, then gliding at the highest point of the jump and even then you just barely make it... if you fail, there's no way to get back up, and the only way to lose all of your HP is on the boss, but you respawn past the ledge... so, what were your "This was downright EVIL" moments?

[Anonymous No.10353504]

There's a similar hidden chest in Mario RPG.
It's one of the earliest, and if you miss it, you miss it forever. It's in the castle and you have to jump off Toad's head on the way to the throne room. He never travels through that hallway again.

[Anonymous No.10353508]

>>10353504
he actually does travel through that hallway again, when you're getting peach in your party. but then they put an invisible wall there.

[Anonymous No.10353524]

Solar Jetman's final level.
The entire game up to this point had specific mechanics. Up raised shields, down lowered them(for activating your tractor beam), left rotates you counter-clockwise, and right rotates you clockwise. One button shoots, the other is thrusters. Hitting against walls drains shields, then health, until finally your ship explodes and you fly around shipless. You start with 4 ships per continue, and can get up to 8 in reserve as well as 8 lives.
The game is also very long, with the level before the final level taking well over an hour to clear, and the nearest "save point" being a level or two prior to that. And the passwords don't actually save all your gear, so you'll most likely want to try to playthrough in a single session if at all possible. The game is also very hard, with endless enemies and massive levels.
So after getting past all that and reaching the final level, you instinctively press up to raise your shields. You fly upwards into a wall, which instantly kills you. "No problem" you say, you have a few ships and lives in reserve. HAHAHHA, fuck you, it's instant game over, your reserve ships and lives mean nothing. Turns out the final level uses standard shoot-em-up controls and physics instead of the 2D space physics simulator the game was since the beginning, and it doesn't bother to inform you things have changed. It also uses the logic that there is only ONE Golden Warship you can have, and gives you a game over if you die on the final level no matter how many ships or lives you have remaining.

[Anonymous No.10353532]

>>10353494
I played through this game not knowing you have a parachute. Playing it now feels like babby mode. Even more fun now though

[Anonymous No.10353556]

The next-to-final boss in Cobra Triangle.
Much like Snake, Rattle, N' Roll, Cobra Triangle's final boss demands near perfection from the player to beat. Granted, Snake's boss actually demanded perfection to beat, but the final boss of Cobra was still pretty cruel. But the bullshit was right before that.
The entire game rewards going fast and blasting the shit out of everything. Then you hit this boss that one-shots you with a homing missile you can't dodge period. You can't deal damage fast enough to take it down before the missile hits. Even fully upgraded, you can't do enough damage or move fast enough to stay alive. There is only one way to beat this twat.
Do nothing. Once the timer gets low enough, he automatically dies. He's a noob trap, designed to kill your run before you even lay eyes on the final boss, after a long hard battle to that point. How any kid was supposed to figure that out, I have no idea. the constant ticking of the timer points you away from the solution.

[Anonymous No.10353560]

>>10353532
>babby
Just say baby, if you'd please.
It's not whatever year it was where this forced affectation was happening.

[Anonymous No.10353562]

>>10353532
>Even more fun now though
It really is, the platforming in SNES Aladdin is some of the most fun and flowing ones I have ever experienced in any video game.

[Anonymous No.10353735]

A classic: At the end of Karateka after you've defeated Akuma and go to rescue your gf, if you approach her in the game's defensive fighting stance, like you're going to fight her, she'll kick you in the face and it's game over. So you have to replay the whole game from the beginning.

It was an asshole feature that wouldn't fly today, but back then it was part of what made the game memorable and part of its charm. It might even have inspired Datasoft's Zorro which came out the year after. Zorro was a little nicer to the player, but not by much. When you think you're close to beating the game and climb up the ladder to rescue the kidnapped señorita, and regardless if you have the handkerchief she dropped when she was carried away, she will shove you off the edge of the building into a moat and you lose a life (just one of four though, so it's only game over if you only had one left). If you did manage to bring her the handkerchief there's now a rose you can go get which you have to bring along back into the enemy fort past the guards to give to her. And only then will she soften up and let you rescue her. Also if you only climbed up the ladder halfway you could discreetly slip her the handkerchief without any harm and then you could go get her the rose without having lost any life.

[Anonymous No.10353781]

a more recent game but retro now; I always think about that weapon in FFXII that was basically impossible to get without a guide. One of the requirements includes NOT opening certain treasure chests. The game does nothing to tell you this or indicate certain chests are different. There's also a beach with 12 treasure chests in a row, the devs WANT you to find it and open all the chests. well guess what bitch one or more of those chests are forbidden, you just locked yourself out of a secret weapon. there's no reason to do this except to incentivize the purchase of strategy guides

[Anonymous No.10353847]

I never got why in a lot of shmups the autofire rate of fire would slow down the more you kept holding the button, like let me fire as fast as possible you fucks, pic related

[Anonymous No.10353943]

>>10353494
>getting all is how you complete the whole thing 100% really... and the last red gem, in the last jump of the last level gives you a single shot, if you miss it... you have to restart the whole thing!
I find the stage before that far harder. The one where you are flying on the magic carpet. It was the one I always got 9 out of 10 red jewels most of the time.

[Anonymous No.10353951]

>>10353781
>there's no reason to do this except to incentivize the purchase of strategy guides
Welcome to JRPG. I hope you enjoy dumb quests that are only found out after buying strategy guides.

[Anonymous No.10353967]

>>10353781
>Noooooooo I am owed every little thing in the game without effort!!! If I'm not given everything on a silver platter the game robbed me and it's bad design!!

People like you ruined secrets in video games

[Anonymous No.10354010]

>>10353967
thanks for bumping the thread but there's a difference between a good secret and a bad secret imo

[Anonymous No.10354146]

>>10353494
Alladin on snes is easy as fuck, the stages are short and there are passwords so I completely support the jump in difficulty for 100% completion.

[Anonymous No.10354150]

>>10354146
>heavily watermarked pictures

learn 2 meme

[Anonymous No.10354156]

>>10353560

[Anonymous No.10354201]

>>10353735
I mean you beat the game at that point right? It's more like a joke ending if anything even if it didn't show you a victory screen.

[Anonymous No.10354208]

>>10353494
Yeah the Red Gems in this are a dick move, but on the other hand, they do nothing whatsoever other than a congratulations message and the game is pretty darn short, so
If at least you had an extra level or something

[Anonymous No.10354212]

>>10353524
>And the passwords don't actually save all your gear, so you'll most likely want to try to playthrough in a single session if at all possible
Oh yeah, it's also the case with Zombies Ate My Neighbors. You want to start at the beginning, or else, if you use a password you'll lose all your items which makes the ridiculous bosses nearly impossible or even way harder than they should be and some of the later levels are absolutely brutal

[Anonymous No.10354231]

games should have nearly impossible achievements that very few players make. gibves you a real sense of achievement

[Anonymous No.10354232]

>>10353504
Games back then weren’t designed for austistic zoomers playing games like they’re to-do lists that must to be completed. The chest is supposed to be a fun little secret, not a maliciously placed missable cheevo.

[Anonymous No.10354237]

>>10354231
If achievements have to exist, they should be like thst. What’s even the point of modern ”achievements” that are just tedious to-do lists that like 20% of players complete? Sony is the fucking worst in this regard – they’re afraid of making anything missable or difficult an achievement, because their fans get upset if they can’t easily 100% a set with a single playthrough.

[Anonymous No.10354248]

>>10354201
But you didn't know that until you'd replayed it and approached her while running.

[Anonymous No.10354256]

>>10354232
>Games back then weren’t designed for austistic zoomers playing games like they’re to-do lists that must to be completed. The chest is supposed to be a fun little secret, not a maliciously placed missable cheevo.

[Anonymous No.10354310]

>literally exists just to waste your time on pure trial&error (so that you won't beat the whole game in a single afternoon - even the devs confirmed it for a fact)

[Anonymous No.10354323]

>>10353560
>Zoomoid tranime poster thinks that he'll ever fit in here (or become a real woman)

[Anonymous No.10354334]

>>10354323
And one day this current thing you're doing will seem prehistoric.
Best to discard it now.

[Anonymous No.10354468]

>>10354334
You can't remain young forever, sonny
Most of us are happy not being with "it" anymore

[Anonymous No.10354482]

>>10354468
Nah that's not gonna cut it.

[Anonymous No.10354932]

>>10353943
Indeed, though that one's really pure memory, or you can do what I did which is replay the level over and over through the password you get when finishing it, and writing a sort of map using the clouds as reference, eventually you'll map the location of the 10 gems and pull it off fine.

>>10354146
I agree, it sort of reminds me of Crash Bandicoot with the overall platforming and adventure not being too much trouble, the "Easy" mode, and when you decide to go for 100% it's like you've switched to "Hard" mode, it adds replay value... I just think that last red gem was pure evil BS.

>>10354208
Agreed, wish they had done more with it, but to be fair, just playing while trying to go for all of them makes it feels like a completely different video game, you really have to master it and, as you become better at it, it actually becomes even more fun, I'm in love with this title now.

>>10354310
I don't mind the monkeys much once you get which ones to roar at and when... the ostrich can be a pain when you have to double jump, the trick is to do the 2nd jump immediately after the 1st... as for the hippos' tails... just play the Genesis version and skip it by going upwards.

[Anonymous No.10354949]

>>10353494
you also had to memorize the carpet level and those gems which was also just one shot

[Anonymous No.10354993]

>>10354256
And the chest gives you nothing whatsoever even if you get them all

[Anonymous No.10355003]

>>10353967
What effort exactly is using a guide?

[Anonymous No.10355529]

>>10353781
>>10353967
good secrets are able to be discovered within the parameters of the game itself; either as plainly as an NPC somewhere giving you a hint or something more esoteric like a chest looking *slightly* different if you pay close attention or something in the environment that signifies something unusual about it. the best secrets are ones that reward the player's intelligence, curiosity and experimentation. there's no skill in shelling out $19.99 for a strategy guide or going on GameFAQs and following step-by-step instructions

[Anonymous No.10355559]

>>10354334
You will never be a woman

[Anonymous No.10355638]

>>10355529
not really you normally discover them through playing and trial and error simple as that.
take as an example the secret chest of mario rpg,is spotted with the secret ring that tells you which room has a hidden chest so in replay you just search the part and discover it,same as FFXII secret weapons the game does hints you but due to poor translation people complain "it can't be discovered without a guide" when in reality the same game tells you how to find the stuff (in japanese).

[Anonymous No.10355639]

[Anonymous No.10355847]

>>10355638
I see, I didn't play FFXII so I didn't know about the chest hints. How poor is the translation, is it nonsensical or could a person still theoretically work out what they need to do?

my point still stands regarding other hintless secrets in games

[Anonymous No.10355857]

>>10355847
FFXII translation is poor,in japanese talking to the right people tells you how to get the secret weapon.

[Anonymous No.10355875]

>>10354993
So it's the same thing as a missable cheevo

[Anonymous No.10355915]

>>10355875
No, because you don't even get a shiny smiley sticker in your account for it

[Anonymous No.10355934]

>>10353494
There's a chest an a Tales of Destiny town, where if you open it there will be nothing inside, and an npc will block your path and force you to surrender all of your money to get by.

[Anonymous No.10355967]

>>10354212
Same in Super Bomberman 3.
But in Bomberman, most of the game is playable without power ups, and you can replay past stages to collect upgrades if you lose them.
Except when you reach the final stage. The final stage is a giant middle finger to the players, it's completely unplayable without upgrades, and you can't leave it. If you die once you may as well restart the whole game.

[Anonymous No.10355976]

Sonic 2, I shit you not. Wing Fortress Zone, Dark Sonic (whatever he's called), Robotnik, this is after trying to accumulate (not farm) lives along the way. It's not that hard really, it is Sonic after all, but the penalty of having to start the entire game over sure is evil.

[Anonymous No.10355987]

Megaman 2 had that fucking Wily Castle boss room where you had to use Crash Man's weapon to break some barriers and then destroy some turrents, and if you missed two shoots you ran out of amno and the whole thing became unwinnable because you couldn't recharge your weapon anymore.

[Anonymous No.10356035]

>>10355967
I thought it was just me getting filtered, but this one really got the better of me... I didn't care all that much for Bomberman before, I just liked it, but not enough to beat any of its titles, but then my GF was very nostalgic for it, so I downloaded a bunch of ROMs of the SNES titles, since it was the console she grew up with, and went ahead to finish them with her together, we finished Super Bomberman, tried going to 2, but it didn't have a multiplayer campaign, and then came 3... when we got the the last world, and didn't have those updates, it felt impossible, so we gave up on it...

>>10355976
Don't worry, while many here will say that Sonic is easy due to the ring system making you a little bit invincible in a way, later stages can be quite a pain when you're not used to them yet, and the one you've mentioned, Wing Fortress, has a ton of bottomless pits, the whole stage is a giant one in a way... 8-Bit Sonic 2 was also quite a challenge to me, mostly on Game Gear, Sonic can be tough.

[Anonymous No.10356054]

>>10353494
There's this old puzzle game called Chip's Challenge. Pic related is a map for level 121, totally fair. The main trick is you have to maneuver the monsters so one gets trapped on the little brown dot and keeps you from getting stuck when you go to get a necessary chip. Not too tricky.

About 20 levels later, you run into 'totally unfair'. Totally unfair is an almost exact replica of Totally Fair, except you are now separated from the section containing the monsters you need to maneuver, so you need to do it completely blindly. You can only realistically beat the level by memorizing the layout of a completely different level and operating from that. And you have to realize that they're connected. If you're playing every so often when you can get the computer like I was in the early 90s, it was weeks separating the two levels and it took me forever to realize that was the gimmick in the first place, let alone solve it.

[Anonymous No.10356056]

>>10355967
this was just plain incompetence on the developers.

[Anonymous No.10356069]

the only most evil thing i can think of is disgaea.
while the game isn't bad and is quite fun to play thing is if you use action replay or it detects the way you play as cheating is simply a goodbye and being unable to finish it.
>use action replay.
>game start as normal
>you advance like you normally would
>suddenly clones show up
>not paying attention
>start battle
>their stats are hundred of times better then yours and unkillable.
this is what evil look.

[Anonymous No.10356075]

>>10355987
There's a Wily Castle room or something in a later Megaman (5?) where you have to use Rush Jet and collect recharge along the way. But if you die, the recharges doesn't come back and it's basically game over. Really badly designed

[Anonymous No.10356078]

worst of all Ultimate Armor on X-4 and X-5 (along collecting the other special armors on X-6)

[Anonymous No.10356124]

>>10356078
How is that worst of them all?

[Anonymous No.10356141]

>>10356124
you need a leap of faith near the end of the game to get it,not only that the requirement to get it is difficult.
>3rd stage of boss
>You need to get there with full energy
>You can't use any armor.
>you need the subtank full of energy
>the armor is hidden near the end of the stage on a lower area so you need a leap of faith to get there.
see how is worst,is kinda similar to getting the head armor on X-3
>to reach the capsule area you need to have the double jump
>is unreachable by normal means
>you can't get the gold armor in normal gameplay.

[Anonymous No.10356192]

>>10356141
I still don't see how this is the worst of them all.
It's a secret. It doesn't stop you from finishing the game, it doesn't lock into a bad ending, it's piss easy to get if you know about it.
You can only argue that missable secrets can ruin your save file, but the whole game is 3 hours long, and X5 can't be 100% completed anyway.

[Anonymous No.10356315]

>>10356075
I think that was my experience in the retread of the Needle Man stage during the Doc Robot part of the game. The second half of the level requires the Rush Jet, and unless you had the foresight to replenish it beforehand, you won't have enough to make it all the way across on a single bar. Revisiting it later in my life, though, it seemed a lot easier than it was when I first played as a kid.

[Anonymous No.10356342]

>>10356141
>>10356192
Yeah, it's this game's shoryuken isn't it?
It's supposed to be a super secret you need a magazine for or something

[Anonymous No.10356357]

>>10353494

>be a developer
>make a game
>you playtest it yourself and as a result it always seems easy to you because you understand everything under the hood (how enemies and projectiles move, where to jump, where all the pick-ups are, etc.)
>Publisher rushes you constantly
>Publisher tells you "Make sure the game can't be beaten too fast! We want to hit it big with rental revenue!"
>Panic and make your already difficult game even more difficult

[Anonymous No.10356383]

fuck you and your red jewel

[Anonymous No.10356405]

>>10353494
Aladdin on SNES is a somewhat easy adventure, at least for the most part, especially with all of the passwords and all. I suppose the red gems was their way of adding a "Hard" difficulty for players who wanted to get more out of it, and they succeeded, not only because going for the red gems is tough on some levels, but because if your goal is to finish the adventure you have tons of lives and continues, and can use passwords, but the passwords don't save your total gem count, and using a continue also resets it, so to get 100% you need to do it all without turning the SNES off or using a continue at all, which I think it's fair, until they decided to make the last red gem, on the last jump, be something you'll only have a single attempt at getting, it's a pain.

I'd say that the GBA version is the definitive one, for a few reasons. It has a lower resolution, to me this would often be a downgrade, but here it makes things a bit more difficult when just going from start to finish, so it's welcome. It also has a save system and it saves your red gem count, and adds a few smaller level sections, a perfect port.

[Anonymous No.10356419]

>>10356357

>adding to this, cheat codes were implemented and leaked by the developers in order to have their cake and eat it too. Cheat codes were a band-aid solution for games that were released too difficult

[Anonymous No.10356448]

>>10356035
>8-Bit Sonic 2 was also quite a challenge to me, mostly on Game Gear
>Antlion boss
>Eggman is off-screen
>You have to dodge balls in order to win the fight
>No rings
>On a slope, so moving is hard
>"Wait guys, I got it, let's change it so that the balls fall as DIFFERENT HEIGHTS"
Is there any explanation for this that doesn't come down to 'sadism'?

[Anonymous No.10356460]

>>10356448
I got filtered by this one so hard as a kid... why is it that SEGA had to include the Game Gear one in the Sonic Gems Collection instead of the Master System version? I hated 8-Bit Sonic 2 for years as a result, because I couldn't get past the 1st boss, and as you've said, for whatever reason they did change the Master System boss fight, which was easier by default due to the better resolution, by making the low bouncing bombs bounce at new and random heights... just why? I went back to it years later, the Master System version though, and loved it, wish I had grown up with that one.

[Anonymous No.10356832]

the two series i think of are sonic and serious sam. neither make it difficult but both punish you in ways that i can only imagine are to fuck with the player. whether that be enemies put in deliberately frustrating areas or picking up a 1 health pill spawning two rocket mechs behind you

[Anonymous No.10356912]

>>10356054
I don't think I ever beat that game. still kino though

[Anonymous No.10356985]

Whoever decided to put the Knight up there is a cocksucker

[Anonymous No.10356993]

>>10356985
Use your fucking axe.

[Anonymous No.10356996]

>>10353494
It's optional content but SMRPG's 100 jumps for the super suit and FFX's 200 lightning dodge for Lulu's ultimate weapon.

[Anonymous No.10357150]

>>10353494
The bonus stage inside another bonus stage in DKC1 got me until I looked it up. Every other time you go for the worst reward on that minigame you get a single banana, but no, on this very specific one you get a barrel for the opposite wall.

[Anonymous No.10357928]

>>10353494
lots of strategy/building games had unfair advantages for the AI opponents, but one that stood out as blatantly evil was the final Settlers 2 level, you have fuckall in resources and you face two opponents in great positions
Basically the only way to win is to employ every cheese strat known to man

[Anonymous No.10357991]

>>10354232
what about old games with 100% completion rates? retard

[Anonymous No.10358019]

>>10356075
MegaMan 2 also becomes unwinnable if you make it to the final stage without enough weapon energy to beat wily's final form because the final stage has no enemies to defeat to farm for energy refills.
This problem was avoided on Megaman 4's final stage as the hallway to Wily's final form was riddled with enemies,

[Anonymous No.10358042]

>>10358019
Isn't it possible to game over then continue to start on that stage with full weapon energy but no E-tanks?

[Anonymous No.10358060]

>>10355529
Everything you said is a modern take. People back then absolutely LOVED obscure and esoteric secrets. It made players feel like everything was possible and that even their favourite games could still have things for them to discover. These days it's the contrary, the mentality is "I paid for it, I'm owed to see 100% of the content in one go without effort".

My point being tastes and common practices change over time. Saying that having secrets that are never hinted is bad design, is the same as saying that limited continues is bad design.

[Anonymous No.10358068]

>>10356383
A lot of the Red Jewels in this game are evil and some doesn't even follow normal conventions of the rest. One of the worst is just checking a wall on the rooftop of a building or something like that. There's a handful of these that are a dick move, and they're missable too
It's one of those strategy guide kinda thing
>>10356996
I finished that game over 30 times and it's the only thing I never managed to do in the game

[Anonymous No.10358069]

>>10356985
Get good

[Anonymous No.10358116]

>>10358069
>endless fucking twirly spear guys with way too much hp

Yep Shitula X alright.