/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.4741675]

why were old famicon and sufamicon era game so hard? was it because they were arcade games and were supposed to make the player lose to spend more coins?
some games only threw you into the start of the level if you got game over like ninja gaiden, some didn't even have much of a consequence like zelda. but mario and sonic for exemple throw you back to the first level if you get game over. makes beating the game almost impossible.

[Anonymous No.4741689]

>>4741675
Welcome to /vr/

Old games on the NES/Famicon, Genesis, and SNES were often able to be beaten in a few hours and needed a way to pad the game to keep people from renting a game for a weekend for $5, beating it, and never playing it again/never buying it.

Each genre did this differently: RPG games had thousands of random battles to make the game last longer, Fighting Games had multiple unlockables and rewarded people putting hundreds of hours into them so they could beat their friends, and games like Mario and Sonic were very difficult as the games progressed so that the player had to practice each stage to get further into the game with each play through.

Some games of the era were terrible with this; games like the original TMNT on NES was so incredibly hard without a password or save system that even after playing it for dozens of hours, many players could barely get halfway through the game.

Also keep in mind that the games of this era were limited to the available space on the cartridge. In the 5th generation, CD media helped developers to make huge games that didn't have to be super hard. Games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill were long games that, while difficult, were never horrifically frustrating.

[Anonymous No.4741768]

LOL at people having trouble with Mario and Sonic.

Have you played literally any other platformers from that era? Hint, they're all much harder than Mario/Sonic. Castle of Illusion, Earthworm Jim, Aero the Acrobat, Vectorman, Demon's Crest, Maui Mallard, Pitfall, Lion King, Aladdin, Pirates of the Dark Water, Warlock etc etc are all much more challenging games than Mario/Sonic's baby formula. Mario/Sonic were pretty much created just to shill for their consoles so ofc they can be completed by a 5 year old with cerebral palsy. Even my mom had no problem getting thru SMB back in the early 90's.

[Anonymous No.4741773]

>>4741675
>famicon and sufamicon
>>4741689
>NES/Famicon

fyi it's famicom (family + computer), not famicon

[Anonymous No.4741798]

>>4741675
>>4741675
You do realize that smb 2 only came out on the famicom disk system?


Ohh, no you dont, because youre a newfag asking newfag question. I was playing smb famicom yesterday and i beat it. Git gud fambalamb.

[Anonymous No.4741819]

>>4741689
>Resident Evil and Silent Hill
>difficult

[Anonymous No.4741829]

I didn't seem to notice the difficulty back then. It was just the way things were. An entire generation of kids was trained by games like Megaman, Contra and Ghouls n' Ghosts. Games aren't about challenge most of the time now, though- they're about a cinematic experience. Of course JRPGs we're doing the cinematic experience thing back in the 90's, too, and I enjoyed a ton of those.

[Anonymous No.4741834]

>>4741768
>harder than Mario/Sonic
>Demon's Crest
Dude that game is even more broken than Super Mario World. There's barely any challenge whatsoever.

[Anonymous No.4741837]

>>4741675
Games were usually shorter, had to make that shit last.

[Anonymous No.4741838]

>>4741675
These examples are all children's games. The average child had no problems back then. OP you may need a different hobby. NES hard was a phrase coined by millenials, not the people who actually played these games in their childhood.

[Anonymous No.4741841]

>>4741838
But millenials are the ones who would have played the NES in their childhood.

[Anonymous No.4741870]

>>4741675
>famicon
>sufamicon
Retard.

[Anonymous No.4741878]

>>4741841
Gen Y yes
Gen Z no

Depends on your definition of a millennial

[Anonymous No.4741919]

The idea that you were SUPPOSED to beat the game wasn’t around back then. It was about sitting down and playing for a while and seeing how far you can get. Some people could try over and over if they wanted or kept having fun, but this idea that the player was somehow obligated to get to the win screen and credits just wasn’t as pervasive as it is today.

Fucking cinematic games.

[Anon No.4741925]

>>4741675
>superfamicom games are hard
Not compared to nes games sweetie

[Anonymous No.4742085]

>>4741675
>was it because they were arcade games and were supposed to make the player lose to spend more coins?
No. Iwata explained it in an interview once coz he used to be a programmer:
It's coz the people making the games tested them constantly during the production process. They ended up getting really good at them so they increased the difficulty.
>>4741689
>Old games on the NES/Famicon, Genesis, and SNES were often able to be beaten in a few hours and needed a way to pad the game to keep people from renting a game for a weekend for $5, beating it, and never playing it again/never buying it.
This was only the case in an extremely small fraction of irrelevant games, so small that it's not even worth mentioning.

[Anonymous No.4742093]

>>4741919
This, plus believe it or not but a lot of early computer scientists and graphics programmers are hardcore philosophers.

Japan knew that kids would be growing up on these games. Tenacity, resilience and perseverance are important qualities to teach children, and Confucians in particular make a big deal about this kinda shit.

[Anonymous No.4742132]

>>4741773
>>4741870
Cmon guys, he just wanted to show off his katakana recognition skills.

[Anonymous No.4742149]

>>4741675
>why were old famicon and sufamicon era game so hard?

They're not hard. You're just not trying to the same level you would be if it was a new game you payed $50-80 for.

Players in the 80s
>anticipate new game
>save up money and buy it
>excited.feel
>read the manual cover to cover, including possibly a mini-strategy guide included near the end
>play the game at home, spend a lot of time playing around, experimenting, being blown away by how far technology is progressing in your life
>talk about it with friends and family
>read about in magazines
>if you're in college, maybe even discuss it on a BBS or newsgroup
>spend many hours with the game, eventually completing it.

vs

players in the 2010
>download from DOPEROMS.COM
>have no experience with the game genre
>do not read the manual
>do not spend time trying to learn the game
>run forward and die
>5 minutes later close the window and load another ROM and/or go on the internet and shitpost

Bonus
>playing in the 80s on original hardware that works perfectly no configuration needed, probably oblivious to the fact you aren't playing on a top of the line "professional" grade CRT
vs
>being a turbo autist who spends 10x more time configuring and worrying about lag and scanlines than actually playing video games

>was it because they were arcade games and were supposed to make the player lose to spend more coins?
No
>some games only threw you into the start of the level if you got game over like ninja gaiden, some didn't even have much of a consequence like zelda. but mario and sonic for exemple throw you back to the first level if you get game over. makes beating the game almost impossible.
Mario allows you to continue the game via a secret code that everyone knew at the time. It's things like this that separate then and now.

Players back then were good at platformers. If you beat Castlevania you could beat Ninja Gaiden. After you had already beaten Mario games to get you into the genre.

[Anonymous No.4742205]

>>4741675
They were designed for children capable of playing with their toys without their mom holding their hand

[Anonymous No.4742238]

DId you know that the Real Mario Two was too hard for dumb-shit retarded Americans that is was changed to Donkey Panic?

[Anonymous No.4742319]

>>4741675
Modern games are so expensive to make that devs are scared shitless of making something hard enough that many people will be unable to see the very end of it.

[Anonymous No.4742383]

>>4741768
>Castle of Illusion
>hard
no

[Anonymous No.4742385]

>>4741870
it's an acronym for FAMIly CONputer you borderline illiterate

[Anonymous No.4744102]

>>4741819
>Hey bro I bought a $400 and a $65 game but couldn't be fucked to get a $20 memory card
>You're good at vidya can you marathon it for me and show me the ending?

[Anonymous No.4744292]

>>4741689
How did video game rentals start?

[Anonymous No.4744523]

>>4742385
>CONputer

[Anonymous No.4744682]

>>4741675
Because game design theory wasn't as developed

[Anonymous No.4744701]

>>4744523
>LAPTOK

[Anonymous No.4744702]

>>4742385
>>4744523

it's FAMIRI KONPIYUTA, you gaijins

[Anonymous No.4744714]

>>4741675
replayability

[Anonymous No.4744912]

>>4742385
>CONputer

[Anonymous No.4744938]

>>4742149
t. retard
People sold cartriges all the time in the 80s/90s. And unless you were playing an actual good game, having only that one game didn't magically lead to you appreciating it. Literally every gaming blog in circa 2001 was young people complaining about shit NES games they've spent months on, because they couldn't get anything else to play. This whole assertion of gaming in the 80s being more "thoughtful" stinks of youngfaggotry. It was literally full of children who bought bullshit "secrets" like Mu under the truck wholesale. It takes a deeper interest in gaming to download ROMs and an emulator now, than to own an NES and three games (LoZ, SMB and some absolute garbage like Trojan) as a kid in the 80s.

[Anonymous No.4745003]

>>4741841
NES was heavily a Gen X console. Millenials' older brother had a NES, so they played it and know about it, but only in reference to the SNES and Gameboy.

[Anonymous No.4745019]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qdRzxmgYWo

[Anonymous No.4745106]

>>4744938
>t. retard
I bet at least half of your posts on here are calling other people retards. It doesn't strengthen your argument.

>People sold cartriges all the time in the 80s/90s.
I never said they didn't.
> And unless you were playing an actual good game, having only that one game didn't magically lead to you appreciating it.
I never said contrary to that either. But there were many good games that got their due in the time that are not getting them now because people who download a rom and dick around with it for 5 minutes are not giving it a fair chance.
> Literally every gaming blog in circa 2001 was young people complaining about shit NES games they've spent months on, because they couldn't get anything else to play.
Ridiculous anecdotal hyperbole that doesn't even make sense.
>This whole assertion of gaming in the 80s being more "thoughtful" stinks of youngfaggotry. It was literally full of children who bought bullshit "secrets" like Mu under the truck wholesale. It takes a deeper interest in gaming to download ROMs and an emulator now, than to own an NES and three games (LoZ, SMB and some absolute garbage like Trojan) as a kid in the 80s.
Not everyone who played games in the 80s was a small child. Not everyone had only three games. Not every game was made for small children in particular. Your image of 80s video gaming is narrow minded and inaccurate.

[Anonymous No.4745190]

>>4745106
>Complains anon is misrepresenting 80's gaming
>Misrepresents ROM gaming
90% of games released in the 80's, even the ones considered good for the time, are trash with zero reason to go back to them other than nostalgia. This is an undisputable fact

[Anonymous No.4745272]

>>4745190
No one has said otherwise in this thread. Your point is irrelevant to the discussion.

[Anonymous No.4745380]

>>4745190
Not him, just trying to think of some less-famous NES games that I played.
>Karnov
Innovative for its time but really does not hold up well. The jump physics worked OK for that game, but feel awkward now. The method of selecting special items was clever, but never used again after 16-bit era introduced controllers with more buttons

>Adventure Island II
Fun mario clone with a few neat gimmicks. Just different enough from Mario/Mega Man to be worth playing (and easier than Mega Man). You could argue this was a precursor to Yoshi in Mario. Main drawback is mediocre/boring level design.

>Astynax
Despite the appeal of sword/sorcery, I could never get into this. A good example of a "Nintendo-hard" difficulty curve. From the very first level, all the enemies move faster and jump father than the player. Just frustrating. Even at the time, this felt like a pale imitation of Taito's Rastan arcade game.

>A Boy and his Blob
I loved the idea for this game but the design of the introductory level is just abysmal. As much as I hate modern hand-holding, AB&HB is way too far the other direction and just dumps into into a flat, dull, nearly featureless area with 12 special abilities that all consume resources to use. I think when I first played it, I didn't even realize you could go down the stairway into the subway.

>Archon: The Light and the Dark
Good game for its time. Each unit has different attack and HP characteristics, and the combat arenas had some obstacles to make battles more interesting. The chess-like strategic element was great. But still, the 1v1 combat system hasn't aged too well despite being great for its time.

>Gun.Smoke
Solid shooter, this one holds up well I think, still almost as fun to play today as it was then.

[Anonymous No.4745384]

>>4742132
Everyone knows what a katana is. He isn't impressing anyone.

[Anonymous No.4745430]

>>4745384
a cat couldn't use that they don't have thumbs you dumby

[Anonymous No.4745683]

>>4745380
You know you could do this same kind of list for any era of games. I know I played through plenty of PS1 games that aren't really worth going back to today.

[Anonymous No.4746302]

>>4741675
>famicon and sufamicon
Just say FC or SFC, you obnoxious weaboo faggot.

[Anonymous No.4747209]

>>4745683
Never suggested otherwise.