Why were NES games so hard?

[therealbowser]

Right, that part was frustrating indeed. I might have erased that from my mind.

Almost every level in Battletoads was like this. This was probably one of the easier levels in the game. I think you just have a different view of how hard these games actually were.

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Why, because otherwise you won't believe me?

Okay, since your opinion is so incredibly important to me, it will be the first thing I do when I'm done laughing at you.

What an arrogant response. Please stream it, don't just upload it. I want to see it in progress. I just need some popcorn for this to be perfect.

[Scathbais]

Go play Battletoads.

I can give more examples, but this emphasizes a ton of the points that are being covered in this thread so far.

First game that came to mind was this one! Super hard, limited continues, much frustration. Never finished it.

[Orlong]

Why, because otherwise you won't believe me?

Okay, since your opinion is so incredibly important to me, it will be the first thing I do when I'm done laughing at you.



Right, that part was frustrating indeed. I might have erased that from my mind.

But it really wasn't that hard. Since the jumps weren't random, you just needed simple memorization skills to remember when to jump. You could play it with eyes closed after memorizing the jums

[Deleted]

Like it was said earlier, home systems at the beginning were trying to mimic a lot of arcade games cause they became popular. Pretty much all of the arcade games were designed to eat coins and the easiest way to do that was to make games difficult or at least requiring a lot of trial and error.

[therealbowser]

First game that came to mind was this one! Super hard, limited continues, much frustration. Never finished it.

I've used cheats to play every level, and realistically I can beat most of them... individually. The last level is actually one of the easier ones, ironically. But there are a couple levels that I have never been able to beat and doubt I ever will.

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But it really wasn't that hard. Since the jumps weren't random, you just needed simple memorization skills to remember when to jump. You could play it with eyes closed after memorizing the jums

I'd love to see this. Please beat that level blindfolded.

[CastletonSnob]

But it really wasn't that hard. Since the jumps weren't random, you just needed simple memorization skills to remember when to jump. You could play it with eyes closed after memorizing the jums

Prove it. Upload a video of yourself playing those games blindfolded.

[Teri]

Games weren't too complex and limited by storage/ram too, so making them hard makes them more replayable, especially if it just had 1 difficulty.

[Nutri]

A few things I could name are (not all games had these); limited lives/continues, one hit and you died, little room for error, graphical glitches, horrible spawning (in sidescrollers; move forward and kill a guy, move a tiny bit back and forward and the mob respawned), mobs spawning at impossible to avoid places.

Most of the levels where static so you could memorize them but some, as the notorious Battletoads tunnel, where very difficult and it would probably costs you a few replays from the start before you passed them. I think the lack of a healthbar and insta-death combined with limited lives/continues paid a large sum in the difficulty of old NES games.

[plagueshard801]

I never struggled too much with Contra or Battletoads. Those were really just games of repetition, if you threw yourself at it enough you'd find the safe spots and so on. Even the Battletoads level linked above, the obstacles are always in the same place. But...

Ninja Gaiden. That fucking game went on forever and ever and ever, with no saves. At all. It is one of the few I never beat. Also I remember a game called Shadowgate, it was some kind of first person dungeon crawler. Advancing through it was pretty much guesswork since the "clues" it gave rarely made any sense.

I was only 6 or 7 back then but to this day I consider those the hardest games I've ever played, and I've played an impressive number of video games.

[nocturnus]

Battletoads?
Castlevania?
Ninja Gaiden?
Contra?
Ghosts 'n' Goblins?

None of these were hard, at least not for me as a kid. I also had Ghouls and Goblins on the Mega Drive and Super Nintendo Come to think of it, I had a LOT of games between the commodore 64, the atari 2600 the nes, game boy, snes, master system and mega drive. Where did I find the time?

But it really wasn't that hard. Since the jumps weren't random, you just needed simple memorization skills to remember when to jump. You could play it with eyes closed after memorizing the jums

Maybe we would find them difficult as well if we played them now for the first time ever. As a kid, barely anything requiring memorisation was hard for me. I see the same thing with my daughters; they pick everything up exceptionally fast.

I remember Mr. Nutz on the SNES, which wasn't particularly hard, but just very very long without any saves. Ah, the warm and fuzzies ^^

[Akka]

Nes emulators make the impossible possible. Thanks save states! Now i can beat all 3 tmnt games and ni ja gaiden without dying. #thumbsup

Yes !
Thanks to them, 20 years later, I could FINALLY see the end of Castlevania (best shot when I played it as a teenager was one third of the level after Frankenstein & Igor) and TMHT (managed to enter the Technodrome twice, but died quickly thereafter). I don't think I could ever manage to finish either without savestate, both have ungodly last levels.

[Nutri]

Yes !
Thanks to ZNES, 20 years later, I could FINALLY see the end of Castlevania (best shot when I played it as a teenager was one third of the level after Frankenstein & Igor) and TMHT (managed to enter the Technodrome twice, but died quickly thereafter). I don't think I could ever manage to finish either without savestate, both have ungodly last levels.

Ouch TMNT was a pickle haha. I never finished it. Cursed Hudson River level often ate most of my lives.

[BicycleMafioso]

None of these were hard, at least not for me as a kid. I also had Ghouls and Goblins on the Mega Drive and Super Nintendo

Out of curiosity, would you find them as easy now as you did then?
For me personally, I could brickwall things forever until I just learnt them. But doing that today? I don't have the resolve, stubbornness or patience for it. I beat games then that I honestly would struggle really badly with now.
I'm also not used to the difficulty. I had a few games where you could unlock the "Japanese difficulty" on as well. Some were harder and some were easier. Never got that.

[Video Games]

Because of pixel flickering and you couldn't see what was going on half the time

[WowIsDead64]

It was about growing up and becoming more and more skilled. For example Felix The Cat - is joke now, but back then it had taken 1-2 years for me to beat it. And yeah, after beating Battletoads and Battletoads'n'DD in actual time (I mean, on real console - not on emulator with saves) - all games are joke.

[CastletonSnob]

Not to brag, but I've beaten Mike Tyson in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out 10 times.

[anaxie]

Not to brag, but I've beaten Mike Tyson in Mike Tyson's Punch-Out 10 times.

I beat Lord Dark Fact Nightmare Mode

[DanThePaladin]

Which games are you referring to? I can't remember any exceptionally hard games on the NES.

Did you ever play The Guardian Legendary? It's a rather unknown gem for NES known for being notoriously hard in some places.

[Thage]

A number of NES games had absolutely brutal difficulty. It's even become a phrase, "Nintendo Hard". So, why were they so hard? Do you think part of what made them hard was the fact that most of them didn't allow you to save?

Most early NES games, much like Atari before, were arcade ports, where your business model was reliant on getting people to keep putting quarters in the machine, so your game typically had to be brutal but rewarding in order to keep players hooked 'til their pockets ran dry.

Later, as the industry recovered from the great gaming crash, the NES's target demographic, enforced by Nintendo of America's tight controls on acceptable content (something they've only relatively recently loosened up on), was younger gamers whose primary source of new games was their parents, meaning they may only get a couple games per year due to the then-high costs (games have consistently cost more than a pretty penny since the NES's runaway success). So developers had to make that game last with plenty of return on investment, in the hopes that future games made by them would attract a built-in fanbase from previous outings.

This design ethos is still visible in the gaming market today, mostly in multiplayer-oriented games like COD and the battle royale genre that got popular recently, with a focus on keeping players paying for microtransactions/loot crates/etc., in effect continuing to pump quarters into the machine.

[anaxie]

Did you ever play The Guardian Legendary? It's a rather unknown gem for NES known for being notoriously hard in some places.

The Guardian Legend you mean.

And yes

RPG / Rail shooter