/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.9734307]

Were retro games actually harder or was it all artifical difficulty?

[Anonymous No.9734313]

>>9734307
Why don't you play some retro games to find out?

[Anonymous No.9734372]

You probably have spells and shit to immediately kill all of these

[Anonymous No.9734374]

>>9734307
isn't it all artificial difficulty ? I don't know. Maybe it actually us who are the artificial ones. Hmm

[Anonymous No.9734513]

>>9734307
People keep posting this pic and no one mentions that your party members are almost demigods and can demolish a group like that with ease

[Anonymous No.9734516]

Menu simulators are not "difficulty"

[Anonymous No.9734530]

Is there anyone who actually enjoys level drain enemies? I've fought them in many games and never once would I say I had any fun doing it.

[Anonymous No.9734535]

>>9734513
Don't the monsters get the first strike in because they ambushed the party? Plus if the level drain dudes get their drain attacks in, that'd make the party less like demigods. That and don't the Ninjas beheading attacks don't give a fuck about levels and just do their thing?

[Anonymous No.9734536]

>>9734530
I like them, makes for an enemy that can potentially create long-term consequences after a fight and anything that triggers powergamers is a win in my book

[Anonymous No.9734843]

>artificial
zoomers do not understand what words mean

[Anonymous No.9734846]

>>9734307
I think its just that boomers are retarded

[Anonymous No.9734890]

Honest answer: it varies from game to game. I think both the amount of "artificial difficulty" and difficulty in general in your average nes game for examle is vastly, VASTLY over-rated by zoomers. Most memetically hard games like Contra, Ninja Gaiden, Castlevania, etc. are fairly easy to beat (or even 1 credit clear, 1 life clear, or various other feats) if you have even the most basic ability to apply any kind of strategy, pattern recognition, or non-geriatric reflexes to them. I dare say there are plenty of modern games that are harder than them.

On the other hand, there are arcade genres - shmups, beat em ups, and some brands of arcade action platformers - that in order to 1cc or play with any proficiency require a fair bit of dedication, planning, and a decent amount of basic skills. But usually these are absolutely hardcore score chasing games that aren't nearly as hard if you aren't chasing a score or a 1cc, and I don't think they're representative of the era as a whole...especially most console games.

[Anonymous No.9734927]

I would say they are harder because many mechanics are not fully explained. As you're learning how to interact with the world, you can get harsh punishments like having to restart the whole game because you didn't know how to beat a new enemy/boss.

[Anonymous No.9735169]

>>9734307
They were often just straight unfair.
Cheesing their challenges was a must in many cases.

[Anonymous No.9736683]

>>9735169
There are definitely old arcade beat em ups or shmups where it's like "if you don't kill this guy exactly as he spawns then you gonna die". However I don't think it's that common outside of the uber brutal arcade game grindset. I can't think of many famous normie 8 or 16 bit games that are anywhere near that hard.

[Anonymous No.9736725]

Old games were more challenging because the playerbase in the west wanted the challenge. There are many proofs of this. Challenge was used for marketing everywhere, and the harder the game was, the better the score in reviews, thus the more chance the game will be bought over another one that can be beaten more quickly.

Then as the playerbase grew bigger and bigger with each generation and with technological advancements and games become more cinematic, difficulty gradually decreased. By the 6th gen, challenge was hardly sought after anymore, and by the 7th gen and casualizaion it was over.

As a result these days it's hard to imagine for people, EVEN for people who were actually there, that things were ever differently. So, despite the great amount of things that prove that players used to seek challenge, they pretend like it wasn't there or if it was indeed there they cling onto excuses so they don't have to feel bad about games who dare to make them die, excuses like
>akktshully they fucked with the players on PURPOSE because RENTALS
>devs didn't know better because little testing
>it was all ARTIFICIAL difficulty anyway

[Anonymous No.9737825]

>>9734307
for every old RPG like pic there were many more that were clunky but possible to overcome without too much thought by fighting in front of the heal spot until you can clear each town's shop, like the first 2 megami tenseis
old RPGs sure liked their instant kills though

[Anonymous No.9737839]

>>9736725
>the playerbase in the west wanted the challenge
nah that's cap, see: SMB2

[Anonymous No.9737851]

>>9734307
Completed this game last summer. Yes this encounter is one of the worst you’ll come across on floor 10. But by that point your mages should know Tiltowait. 1 or 2 should finish off the ninjas, nightstalkers and ogre lords. As for the greater demons they can be killed with a good weapon found on the guardian tiles that you find on floor 10. Eventually you can take them out with ease with a samurai with a masamune or a ninja, lords can decapitate too.

[Anonymous No.9737917]

>>9734307
D&Dogshit sucks
Videogamers eat up derivatives of that shitty system with no complaints even worse than tabletop gamers do
Yes all of those "classic" rpgs are bad copies of a garbage pen and paper game, got a problem with it?

[Anonymous No.9737931]

>>9737917
It was pretty obvious to many of us at the time that D&D was not ideal for a CRPG. But D&D brand sold disks and that's what mattered to publishers

[Anonymous No.9738052]

>>9737839
It went both ways. You can dig out games that were made easier in localization, and games that were made harder.

For what it's worth, I think one of the most interesting tidbits I remember seeing was an interview with the ghouls and ghost series devs where they said something like players kept giving them tips for making the game harder in location tests, or generally asking for more challenge, which resulted in the general balance of those games. IIRC.

[Anonymous No.9738067]

>>9734516
It is a really dumb word to use to describe difficulty in a video game. I think what OP meant was cheap difficulty. The arcade versions of Mortal Kombat are a good example since after the first match the CPU will read your inputs.

[Anonymous No.9738114]

>>9734843
It is a really dumb word to use to describe difficulty in a video game. I think what OP meant was cheap difficulty. The arcade versions of Mortal Kombat are a good example since after the first match the CPU will read your inputs.

[Anonymous No.9738197]

>>9738114
If "punch the opponent until he dies" is a facade and the real gameplay is fucking with the input reader, is it so inaccurate to say the challenge is artificial?

[Anonymous No.9738216]

>>9734530
Yeah, vampiric entities in Baldur's Gate II will fuck you up if you come in like an idiot. Otherwise it's a trivial threat.

[Anonymous No.9738220]

>>9734307
There are lots and lots of very hard new games.

[Anonymous No.9738224]

>>9734307
>leaving out how the player is probably capable of becoming insanely broken powerful in an old game like this and can probably wipe all those enemies in one turn

[Anonymous No.9738230]

>>9734535
>Don't the monsters get the first strike in because they ambushed the party?
I would assume the player has charms and accessories that either negate the ambush or automatically defend to the point of nullifying the enemy's attack

[Anonymous No.9738304]

>>9738230
>accessories to negate ambush
>automatically defend
No such thing in the first Wizardy I. They're genuinely fucked. If they had gotten first strike, they would have had the Mages waste them with some high level spells, but it would be way more advantageous to just either save-scum (which people did all the time with the OG Wizardry; just pop in your last SaveDisk) or run.

Wizardry existed in the time period before "kill everything" was the rule in D&D (and Wizardry is very much D&D with the numbers filed off). You were suppose to run if things were too tough.

[Anonymous No.9738321]

>>9734307
No, games these days just have kindergarten properties

[Anonymous No.9738325]

>>9737839
You’re so fucking stupid. You don’t understand competition like older generations. You get participation trophies no cap, fr fr

[Anonymous No.9738356]

>>9734307
Why are there ninjas, ogres and demons in the same party/universe? Why don't they at least try to have some consistency for the fantasy setting they had in mind?

[Anonymous No.9738395]

>>9738052
what games were made harder during localization? I can only think of examples of the opposite

[Anonymous No.9738429]

>>9738356
A demon can't keep highly trained cultist ninjas and ogre slaves as pets? Imagionationlet.

[Anonymous No.9738438]

>>9738356
They're all under the thrall of the wizard at the bottom of the dungeon. He summons and then mind controls them to do his bidding.

[Anonymous No.9738905]

>>9734307
isnt all difficulty technically artificial?

[Anonymous No.9738938]

>>9738304
You can't use magic during the surprise attack round you faggot.

[Anonymous No.9738950]

>>9734530
I do, because they actually have something to threaten you with, so you have to learn to deal with them in the appropriate fashion and not just walk into them headfirst.

[Anonymous No.9738957]

>>9734307
Most games like OP's pic have ways of dealing with monsters like that. For example, there are often protective spells or the like. When you're up against something like level drain it encourages you to think critically about your options and try approaches you might not have thought of otherwise.

Of course, part of the point of such monsters is to divert things like your magic to guarding against them speciffically leaving you with fewer spells to use at leisure.

[Anonymous No.9738963]

>>9734307
Games don't even have cheat codes anymore which is what everybody used back in the day. You definitely ain't got Gameshark on an unmodded PS4 either. With the adoption of the internet, developers – knowing you might Google a walkthrough – have to make the execution itself challenging. I couldn't play more than an hour of Dark Souls because it's just too hard, whereas NES Castlevania was a cinch for me on my first playthrough. Games are harder now.

[Anonymous No.9738970]

>enduring torture is satisfying
this is mental illness

[Anonymous No.9739364]

>>9738197
Would that make Battle Garegga an artificially difficult game too?

[Anonymous No.9739537]

>>9734307
I figured it was because so many were arcade games where the goal is to kill people off in 30 seconds to earn more quarters

[Anonymous No.9739539]

>>9738395
Contra hard corps us version trims your life to one third and gets rid of infinite continues

[Anonymous No.9739730]

>>9737839
Except you have ONE counter example against the endless proof found in marketing, magazines and even dev interviews saying the west liked a challenge, unlike Japan.

That counter example smells like bullshit to me, too, they probably made it up because they didn't want/couldn't release the game for another reason. Like how the same people at Nintendo of America not releasing Mother on NES because "oh players don't actually like RPGs here", despite the first Final Fantasy selling more in the US than in Japan and FF and DQ games being constantly in the top 10 of NES and GB games in Nintendo Power (it's only with the next gen that sales of RPGs decreased).

You may choose to believe the words of Nintendo of America reps if you want to, I choose to believe the streams of facts from many other sources.

[Anonymous No.9739770]

>>9739730
>That counter example smells like bullshit to me, too
It is. SMB2 wasn't released outside Japan because it was too similar to the original and would've just looked cheap and outdated at the time.

[Anonymous No.9740405]

>>9736683
> I can't think of many famous normie 8 or 16 bit games that are anywhere near that hard.
'Famous normie games' become them due to being more approachable in terms of gameplay and graphics.
Remaining retro games filter people left and right.

[Anonymous No.9740547]

>>9734307
Older games are intimidating when you don't know what you are doing. After spending some time you realize they aren't that complex. Games like Wizardry, Might & Magic, Ultima, Hydlide are not that difficult when you know what is expected of you and how to progress.
I played The Legend of Zelda for the first time in maybe 25 years yesterday and was amazed at how easy the labyrinths were to navigate. It was much harder as a kid.

[Anonymous No.9740568]

Do you think there is a human being on this planet who has beaten Return of Werdna without a guide?
I've been thinking about it a lot lately and I can't comprehend how someone could have possibly done it.

[Anonymous No.9740570]

>>9734374
You might be on to something with this one, gamer

[Anonymous No.9740579]

>>9738970
Enduring “torture” long enough to become the torturer yourself is a lot of fun.

[Anonymous No.9740583]

>>9740568
There are people who beat Nethack unspoiled so yeah there's probably a few autists who've done it

[Anonymous No.9740593]

Difficulty can be good or bad. It depends on whether it's satisfying to overcome or not.

[Anonymous No.9740831]

>>9734530
I like them when they're hot monstergirls.
Otherwise they can fuck right off.

[Anonymous No.9741214]

>>9740568
Probably the guy who made the Return of Werdna guy. I mean, he didn't have a guide to go off of.

[Anonymous No.9741246]

>>9740568
Scorpia did.

[Anonymous No.9741278]

>>9741246
>"eminently fair and is, perhaps, one of the most finely-balanced games I've ever played. Every puzzle, every encounter, every clue ... has been worked out with careful exactitude"
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>eminently fair
WHAT?

[Anonymous No.9741282]

>>9738197
All video games are artificially difficult by definition because it's not a real challenge. We're just sitting in our underpants thumbing away at a controller to kill time.