/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.4456998]

hey guys do you remember when video games were hard

[Anonymous No.4457006]

>Kintaro
>hard

[Anonymous No.4457012]

>>4457006
>eyedol
>hard

[Anonymous No.4457018]

>>4457006
>Kintaro
>not hard

[Anonymous No.4457027]

>>4456998
mortal kombat isn't hard it's literally disingenuous and the computer cheats, you can only determine effective tactics to win through actual meta-knowledge or luck

[Anonymous No.4457029]

>>4457018
>crouch
>wait until it comes near
>uppercut
>repeat

[Anonymous No.4457032]

>>4457027
Sweep and spam projectile moved as much as possible to win.

[Anonymous No.4457041]

>>4456998
The decrease of game difficulty is easy to understand, you just need some perspective.

First factor: The increase of storage capacity in games has pushed some developers into trying to put story into the games. If you try to tap into this larger demographic that plays games for story you now need to simplify the game so everyone can have access to the story. This started to accelerate a lot around the 5th gen when CD's became the mainstream format.

Second factor: Due to the increasing power of home game systems (PC and console alike) arcades stopped being popular eventually since a lot of people went there just because of the gap in technical power between games there and at their home. Little by little games developed for consoles, even if not ports, started to abandon arcade game philosophy (where you have to satisfy two demands: hard for the operators and fun for the players) and so games transitioned from challenge to "experiences".

There are more and I could go on but these are the two big ones and I think most people here understand my point already.

[Anonymous No.4457057]

>>4457012
KOO AAH
PAAAAAH

[Batowl No.4457067]

>>4456998
The ports are easier.

[Anonymous No.4457214]

>>4457041

I completely agree with your points, could you go on? I'd like to hear your thoughts and it's nice to hear some actual discussion around here.

[Anonymous No.4457218]

>>4457041
Also puzzle, turn based, tank controls, lives, fighting games inputs are dying out slowly.

[Anonymous No.4457219]

>>4457029
that's the entirety of MK though

[Anonymous No.4457229]

>>4457219
That's the joke

[Anonymous No.4457258]

One of my favorite casual filters right here.

[Anonymous No.4457261]

>>4457218
I don't see much point to fighting game inputs though, other than having more moves than what is possible already with 6 buttons and a move for each one and for each direction+button. They increase the skill floor but in a bit of a not intuitive way. (Still love these games though)

>>4457214
Have you noticed how games have increasingly implemented progress systems over time? Instead of making a tight experience they make you unlock stuff, grind, etc. and this was even before F2P stuff.

The reason for this is also linked to all that stuff before. Game devs slowly realized that the potential consumer base for people craving progress systems was much higher than that of pure gameplay. Also, by having said progress systems you can pretty much know your players will get through the game eventually and also make the length you want.

The length stuff is important since after the shift from pure gameplay/arcade to story/experience games they began to justify price by length instead of by quality or fun (imagine home movies expected to become longer and longer and that becoming the new standard for quality lol).

So single player experience became a game with very light and easy gameplay where you can even grind to destroy whatever's been left of the difficulty so you can see the story. And later you have these glorified Skinner boxes where the whole point is just to play to progress even if you don't even enjoy what you play when you do so.

I insist: the reason there are more people attracted to Skinner boxes (story bits can also act as reward) than to game mechanics is one of the biggest reasons for the downfall of games as a medium.

[Anonymous No.4457262]

>>4457258
Nice easy game.

[Anonymous No.4457265]

>>4457262
It isn't hard, just time consuming.

[Anonymous No.4457281]

>>4457261
>(imagine home movies expected to become longer and longer and that becoming the new standard for quality lol)

That gave me a chuckle. Thanks for expanding on the topic. I see the same thing you're talking about with trophies and 100%ing games. Once you're done with it, it's just a chore to do that stuff. I guess it would be good for a kid with only a few games, but as a functioning adult, "ain't nobody got time for dat".

I can't really think of much to add honestly. The thing that I really noticed was when trying a modern mario game, it lets you skip tough parts, or gives you some insane power up. My wife and I (sorry but we game together a lot) call them retard powers. We give each other a lot of shit if we use retard powers to get past a tricky point.

I don't really see casualization as the root evil, I see not letting competent gamers turn that shit off. It makes sense for a company to make stuff more accessible, but let us disable that shit.

With all that said, sometimes it's important to allow things like handicap accessible features. I wouldn't want to see some kid unable to game because they had motor problems or something. Again, include it, but let us turn that shit off.

[Anonymous No.4457291]

>>4457261
I've been playing a lot of sixth gen games lately, and the most common design choice I've noticed between these games is that they all have a fuckload of padding/filler. You can really tell this generation came during a time when games were being heavily judged based on their length.

I don't think it's as bad nowadays, where shit like hour-long walking simulators can still receive critical praise.

[Anonymous No.4457303]

>>4457281
One thing I forgot to mention is that this progress bullshit was technically impossible on the arcades and even on home stuff before batteries / memory cards and more storage in PCs, so there's yet another link.

About the 100% OCD crap... I hate it when people review games and they say the game is crap because some side content is very bad. Then... what about only doing the stuff you enjoy in the game? Your dollars aren't less well spent by doing crap you dislike and destroying your overall experience of the game.

Apologizing for having a wife and playing games together lol

Consider that they won't make you able to disable that stuff since more casual gamers could get confused and turn off by the game. Also, they make you unlock harder difficulties even if this is asinine because (apart from the progress shit I mentioned before) like this you make sure casuals aren't getting a bad experience. And yes, some will pick harder difficulties because they don't want to FEEL as a baby or disrespected by the game, they may play games little or superficially but they think they are better than they are (Dunning–Kruger effect).

[Anonymous No.4457308]

>>4457291
Around that time magazines usually gave bad scores to arcade ports because they were too short and easy (completed the games credit feeding). Things indeed had changed.

And I hate that padding a lot, dropped games before when they started with the usual mandatory fetch-quest crap.

[Anonymous No.4457340]

>>4456998
Scorpion BTFO

[Anonymous No.4457398]

>>4457261
God i wish i were gay

[Anonymous No.4457404]

>>4457398
me too i really want to suck a cock

[Anonymous No.4457425]

>>4457398
>>4457404
What's goin on here

[Batowl No.4457431]

>>4457425
V fags.

[Anonymous No.4457438]

>>4456998
Cheap difficulty like the one at MK doesn't counts. At least post good examples of hard yet challenging games like Contra.

[Anonymous No.4457442]

>>4456998
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1eUBYT8wKjA here's a way to beat kintaro using scorpion

[Anonymous No.4457451]

>>4457442
even with the exploit you can see he's still struggling

[Anonymous No.4457461]

Kintaro and motaro was gatekeepers. Khan is easier.

I just rom hack and remove those faggots.

[Anonymous No.4457463]

Why were western arcade games cheaper? Even for Japanese games a lot of western localisations include changes to make the games more unfair to 1CC. Maybe this is one of the reasons the scene declined much faster than in Japan there, giving these games a bad quarter-munching image.

[Anonymous No.4457474]

>>4457463
To gouge more coins. Besides child predators used to take kids and groom them.

[Anonymous No.4457482]

>>4457474
Still doesn't explain why they were cheaper than in Japan relatively speaking

[Anonymous No.4457489]

>>4457442
>msn sound in background
oh shit

[Anonymous No.4457494]

>>4457482
It does. American greed and fad culture. Combined with Japan love of easier games. Western arcades games was the last hold outs of hard to very hard games.

[Anonymous No.4457506]

>>4457451
Indeed, however he still managed to defeat him

[Anonymous No.4457520]

>>4457494
You got it wrong. Japanese releases were usually more challenging (you can compare versions of the same game in different regions) but in a fair way, while western ones or western versions tended to be more "bullshit" hard, or hard to 1cc. In some your health depletes over time and you have to insert more coins just to stay alive even if you haven't done anything wrong.

[Anonymous No.4457532]

>>4457520
Japanes street fighter 2 turbo Ai is way easy even on hard.

Ps1 Japanese games are harder than mid 90s to up arcade games.

[Anonymous No.4457545]

>>4457532
AFAIK there wasn't that high of a demand for difficult single player fighting games since they got revenue through the multiplayer aspect.

mid 90's to up? Isn't that when manic shooters started being made?

Still, I'm comparing japanese arcade games to western arcade games here, I don't see why you compare those

[Anonymous No.4457652]

>>4457520
The Japanese version of Super Ghosts and Goblins did not have a continue feature. The western one did and rather than earning a life from points you earned a whole continue. You had practically unlimited continues because of this. Even if you got stuck on the same level and lost all your lives you probably earned enough points to get a continue.

[Anonymous No.4457662]

>>4457652
Yeah, I don't get this anon with its "western arcades were more challenging".

On consoles though if a game was released overseas it ended up becoming harder than in Japan because of renting demands in the West back then (in Japan it's been forbidden afaik) though again usually in cheap or sometimes weird ways (like the damage scaling in the western Castlevania 3)

[Anonymous No.4457678]

>>4457662
>Yeah, I don't get this anon with its "western arcades were more challenging".
Then you didn't play many arcade games.

[Anonymous No.4457693]

>>4457678
Yes, I do, and SO many times the japanese version is harder. Do I even need to list examples?

I just mentioned that in some instances western releases or games developed in the west tended to include cheap deaths instead of straight challenge.

[Anonymous No.4457707]

>>4457693
But we're talking specifically about Arcades, and it's mostly America doing all the fucking.
You should always, always stick to the World versions on MAME.

[Anonymous No.4457708]

>>4457693
>Do I even need to list examples?
Actually, yes. I would like to know that.

[Anonymous No.4457709]

>>4457707
I play the japanese ones. Why the world versions, though?

[Anonymous No.4457712]

>>4457662
Konami tended to be the one that made western releases harder. They also removed the continue feature from hard corps and changed your life from 3 to 1. Since you lost your weapon when you died this also meant you lost guns at 3 times the normal rate meaning you also dealt less damage. It also meant you couldn't conserve bombs.

In Metaphorical force they made it so your health is constantly going down. The result was that even if you never got hit by enemies you would still be losing your lives.

Konami REALLY fucked with their release for some reason. There's also all sorts of micro changes in them that really made wonder why they bothered. Like how in castlevania 3 in a few stages there's 1 candle removed or 1 candle added. They were also the company that did the most censorship. They changed the rock color in the cave level in castlevania 3 from red to blue because they thought red would remind people of hell....

>Yeah, I don't get this anon with its "western arcades were more challenging".
I'd have to guess it has to do with the humilation factor. The Japanese treated arcades as a place to develop their skills and created the best most challenging arcade games. While the Westerns just complained about difficulty and quarter fed. And developed shitty games, games which not only were ugly and mechanically inferior but who's difficulty came from lousy design (rail shooters with unavoidable damage, fighting game ai that has a 100% counter or block rate against everything except one or two attacks, or making your life points constantly drain)

[Anonymous No.4457723]

>>4457709
World is often just the Jap rom translated into english.

Konami was pretty bad about their localizations, they added a decreasing health to Metamorphic Force and a timer that would drop a bomb on you in Turtles IV, added buyable health for Castlevania and Turtles 2, they removed health from Simpsons and so on. They removed extends from Battle Garegga which made the game impossible. They made Super Street Fighter 2 a lot harder and set the default speed to turbo, they broke the flintlock mechanic in Xexex.

Oh I know of one instance of an Arcade game actually made easier in America, they made it so R-Type Leo respawned you on-spot instead of on checkpoint.

[Anonymous No.4457725]

>>4457712
>And developed shitty games, games which not only were ugly and mechanically inferior but who's difficulty came from lousy design
Now you're just shitposting.

[Anonymous No.4457729]

>>4457261
>>4457281
>(imagine home movies expected to become longer and longer and that becoming the new standard for quality lol)
>what the fuck this stupid series only has 6 episodes! rating: 0 out of 5 stars

[Anonymous No.4457738]

>>4457708
Ok, sure.

Gradius and Nemesis. In Nemesis when you die and respawn on a checkpoint a lot of enemies granting powerups show up that aren't in the japanese Gradius so that you can more easily recover.

Another one: DonPachi. In the western release you get A LOT more bombs than in the Japanese since when you die and IIRC after every level it restocks your bomb count, while in the Japanese it refills you a limited number (1+ the number of the stage you're in). I haven't played this game THAT much but I'll tell you I can only 1cc the first loop on the western one so far.

And if you want another genre you also have the Super GnG example anothe anon gave earlier.

In conclusion, you see scoring communities usually go for the hardest version if there are any regional differences and you see the Japanese one showing up a lot.

[Anonymous No.4457741]

>>4457723
Battle Garegga is from Raizing though

Still, my point stands, these difficulty increases are cheap. Why were they made? And why were western devs doing it themselves?

>>4457729
You don't see that nearly as often though.

[Anonymous No.4457864]

>>4457725
Can you honestly say that the Western arcade games were good past say 1983? They barely managed to make playable games let alone top games.

[Anonymous No.4457870]

>>4457864
Yes.

[Anonymous No.4457908]

>>4457864
Mostly style over substance stuff.

I've never been into most western games at all to begin with, though in the time period you mention there are some classics I like such as Tempest.

Still, even if they are still fun, "Atari era" arcade and home games are admittedly simplistic in comparison to what would soon become the industry.

[Anonymous No.4457963]

>>4456998
oh boi, that trademark mk stomb jump animation... moves straight up until out of screen, moves straight down at a different position on the screen...

[Anonymous No.4458991]

>>4457029
You jump kick Kintaro, gook. Worse is that casuals didn't know that.

[Anonymous No.4458997]

>>4457870
prime example of a game that you credit-feed your way through to lol at the wacky shit.
the gameplay is aggravating and considerably inferior to japanese run-n-gun games.

[Anonymous No.4459001]

>>4458997
Fuck off.

[Anonymous No.4459005]

>>4459001
ok. take narc vs contra (lol, no contest).

[Anonymous No.4459007]

>>4459005
I vote Contra

[Anonymous No.4459393]

>>4457018
>>4456998
Try using Sub if you have that much trouble. He's such a complete bitch for ground freeze, makes it almost a non-fight even on hard.

[Anonymous No.4459407]

>>4458997
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L0jP_VErHs

[Anonymous No.4459409]

>AI reading input and always having counter
>AI able to cancel moves and other things the player can't
Fighting game bosses were often times plan cheap

[Anonymous No.4459424]

>>4459407
Driving over a bridge while running over drug addicts in your Dodge was a great level

[Anonymous No.4460106]

>>4459407
yeah man crouching all the time like a faggot and avoiding combat is so cool

[Anonymous No.4460176]

>>4457006
Kintaro is by far harder than this piece of shit meme boss

[Anonymous No.4461749]

>>4457723
>Konami was pretty bad about their localizations, they added a decreasing health to Metamorphic Force and a timer that would drop a bomb on you in Turtles IV

Nice Memeposting there, there's no such thing like the game killing you cause you were doing good.

[Anonymous No.4461993]

>>4457431
You're the biggest homo of the bunch.

[Anonymous No.4462587]

>>4457712

I thought the hard corps change was better imo.
At first it sucked ass, but then after no-missing all the routes I can't imagine playing with 3 hits as you get mad invincibility on each hit.

They should've fixed losing your gun though. That shit does suck.

but yeah a lot of these changes for other games are artificial.

[Batowl No.4462653]

>>4461993
Says the v fag

[Anonymous No.4462665]

>>4457027
>>4457265
>>4457438
>>4459409
>It's not hard, it's just

Don't make this any more complicated than it is. If a game is difficult to complete, then it's hard. Doesn't matter where that difficulty's coming from.

[Anonymous No.4462683]

>>4457723
there is zero reason to ever play the non-JP version of any Konami arcade cab

sometimes western arcade releases are easier, sometimes they're harder, sometimes it's even done in an enjoyable way and is worth playing over JP for whatever reason
but Konami ALWAYS managed to fuck it up in the dumbest ways
I'm never not going to be mad at how much they fucked up Xexex and Metamorphic Force.

>>4462587
Hard Corps is done pretty well. The game is otherwise identical other than the OHKO difference, and the game is tightly put together enough to make it reasonable to not get hit.