Why were NES games so hard?

[nocturnus]

I don't know how you can generalize like that, however as part of that generation, I can assure you neither me nor any of my friends would ever buy a game if we could complete the 5-60 minutes worth of content while visiting a friend's house. Hence the difficulty and all the 'secrets'

It's quite some time ago, so I can't tell you exactly how long it would take us to finish a game. What I can tell you is that we didn't think any game was particularly difficult. Sure, team Nintendo in Super Soccer was a bitch, Mike Tyson in Punch Out was a tough cookie, M. Bison (Vega) in SFIIT could dish out a beating, Revenge of the Shinobi, Strider and Comix Zone all had their frustrating moments, but I can't say any of those were exceptionally difficult.

I have to disagree with you DS series playing it with a controller is not horrible far from it. It's really great the main problem is some people say it's horrible because they mix the DS series to a hack and slash games like God of War or Devil May Cry. It's not horrible it's just different. You are the first guy who ever say DS series controls are horrible...yeah it takes time to get used to specially for those who are new to the series but far from horrible.

I am the first guy to ever say DS controls are terrible?

Yeah, okay

[Velshin]

It's quite some time ago, so I can't tell you exactly how long it would take us to finish a game. What I can tell you is that we didn't think any game was particularly difficult. Sure, team Nintendo in Super Soccer was a bitch, Mike Tyson in Punch Out was a tough cookie, M. Bison (Vega) in SFIIT could dish out a beating, Revenge of the Shinobi, Strider and Comix Zone all had their frustrating moments, but I can't say any of those were exceptionally difficult.



I am the first guy to ever say DS controls are terrible?

Yeah, okay

Controls with the controller? yup first time for me tbh. I have been playing the series since Demon's Souls and watching blogs, forums, youtube, videos about a lot of complains of the souls series from different reasons. But this is the first for me that someone say that the controls of DS with the controller is terrible.


Yeah controls with mouse and keyboard is horrible I agree (In DS3 it gets much better though).

[nocturnus]

Controls with the controller? yup first time for me tbh.

Yeah, that means you haven't really looked. For someone who's been 'watching blogs, forums and youtube videos' you sure seem to have difficulty googling something simple like "dark souls has horrible controls". Because if you do, you'll see plenty of complaints.

Whether you agree with it or not, is irrelevant.

[Velshin]

Yeah, that means you haven't really looked. For someone who's been 'watching blogs, forums and youtube videos' you sure seem to have difficulty googling something simple like "dark souls has horrible controls". Because if you do, you'll see plenty of complaints.

Whether you agree with it or not, is irrelevant.

Hey this is just my opinion no need to get angry ok? and yes I do know how to google stuff man no need to go super defensive I am not blaming you or anything this is just my opinion because I know you are kinda new to the Souls series. Yes I did a lot of research and guess what? most of those complaints are from new players to the series who didn't understood the genre gameplay 100% they mix it with DMC or God of Wars which is entirely their fault because the gameplay is totally different.


I am talking about those who understood the gameplay of the souls series never I see a single one of them complains about the controls with a controllers. Complains about DSI pc port being clunky and horrible is indeed I saw a lot.

[Cyclone Jack]

Yeah, I thought it was a consensus that controls in Dark Souls were clunky. It reminded me a bit of the original Castlevania and Ghosts 'n Goblins; the controls worked, but they weren't smooth and had their own little quirks that you had to get used to. Once you get used to the clunky controls you don't really think about them, until you take a break and play a few other games for a few days; then you have to attune yourself back to Dark Souls controls.

[nocturnus]

Hey this is just my opinion no need to get angry ok? and yes I do know how to google stuff man no need to go super defensive I am not blaming you or anything this is just my opinion because I know you are kinda new to the Souls series. Yes I did a lot of research and guess what? most of those complaints are from new players to the series who didn't understood the genre gameplay 100% they mix it with DMC or God of Wars which is entirely their fault because the gameplay is totally different.


I am talking about those who understood the gameplay of the souls series never I see a single one of them complains about the controls with a controllers. Complains about DSI pc port being clunky and horrible is indeed I saw a lot.

Quite interesting.

What makes you think I'm angry? Or new to the Dark Souls series? What do you think being 'super defensive' actually means?

You're making a lot of assumptions there mate.

Great, You did your research! Which shows you there's a significant sum of people that doesn't like the controls. Ergo, I cannae possibly be the first person to express my dissatisfaction.

Glad we could clear up that misunderstanding.

Yeah, I thought it was a consensus that controls in Dark Souls were clunky.

There is, but fans will be fans.

[Velshin]

Quite interesting.

What makes you think I'm angry? Or new to the Dark Souls series? What do you think being 'super defensive' actually means?

You're making a lot of assumptions there mate.

Great, You did your research! Which shows you there's a significant sum of people that doesn't like the controls. Ergo, I cannae possibly be the first person to express my dissatisfaction.

Glad we could clear up that misunderstanding.



There is, but fans will be fans.

To answer your first question the way you told me that search google and that I didn't know how to do it.


Second question I know that you are new based on how we talked about your previous posts in different topic related to which build and specs you should play and use in DSIII (your torrented version or something like that) (which is fine nothing wrong with being new at all tbh). I am sure that was you unless it was someone else and I could be wrong.


It's not about being fan or not it's about adapting and knowing the gameplay. I will give you an example, I am also a fan of the Witcher series and I can definately say that the combat and the controls system even with controller is super garbage and super clunky (talking about the first Witcher game) it gets slightly better in Witcher 2 but still clunky and annoying and yet again it gets better in Witcher 3 but still annoying and clunky sometimes specially with the camera.

But about Souls series it's all about adapting and managing your stamina and the basic movements once you learn that you will see nothing wrong at all with the controls. In Witcher 1 I tried to adapt and use that same method to learn but it's still sooooo annoying now this is what I call indeed bad and horrible combat and controls system.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

They were hard in my opinion because of a few things...

Limited lives. Die 3 times start the game over. From the start.

No saved states. So you couldn't walk right outside the bosses room. Save. Then try endlessly.

Spawning issues. Need to make a jump to a tiny platform? Killed the guy on it? Scrolled a little to the left and it's back.

Timers. Usually had 2 or 3 minutes to finish a stage or dead.

Add these things together and it forces you to move quickly though sometimes strange spawns with limited lives. Rarely a ton of repeat attempts on more difficult spots without rerunning the stages before.

Now if you really just sit down and master the patterns and grind the game out you discover them to actually be pretty easy with time. They are the type of games anyone can pick up and know what to do. Simple to understand. But take a lot of time to master patterns all the way throughout the whole games. So if you are someone that can sit down and just grind on a game you will get pretty good at it. If you aren't that type of person you will likely become pretty frustrated.

[zealo]

Yeah, that means you haven't really looked. For someone who's been 'watching blogs, forums and youtube videos' you sure seem to have difficulty googling something simple like "dark souls has horrible controls". Because if you do, you'll see plenty of complaints.

Whether you agree with it or not, is irrelevant.

Could certain button mappings like the kick and jump functions been done better, as it was improved upon in the sequels? Certainly. The controls themselves though are very very far away from "horrible" territory with how responsive movements and actions are to player input.

[Akka]

While crazy difficult, it has been done by TheMexicanRunner, a speedrunner and NES completionist mostly known for running Battletoads and having beaten every NES game ever licensed by Nintendo. http://themexicanrunner.com/faq

This guy must not be fully human.

[Misuteri]

1. Limited or non-existent saves.
2. Limited cartridge space made games with high scores as their focus had no option but to make games rinse/repeat and get harder, faster or “cheaper” to ensure progression. PAC MAN, Donkey Kong, Tetris etc.
3. Again with the limited cartridge space, but if there were a beginning, middle and end the better the graphics the shorter the game would be or could be. Look at how simple Contra was with the Konami code and how short that game really is from beginning to end. If you played it legit it was seemingly a very long and challenging game not a 10 minute run through.

The most unique games of the NES and SNES era to me that have held up over time were top down or side scrolling shooters like 1942/43, Lifeforce, UN Squadron (I hate that this game gets slammed all the time it was one of my favorites that only suffered from SNES hardware limitations.) Xevious etc.

Many of the franchises launched in that era now that they’re graphic showcases instead of gameplay showcases have lost a lot of their luster

[Akka]

They aren't hard now, to me. Original Mega Man used to be SO HARD when I was 11 years old. That damn ice man stage with the disappearing blocks, and the Ice Man boss fight used to be so hard to me, plus Elecman. He used to move so damn fast. Now, it's a joke. I can do them with an arm behind my back, just about. We also have to understand that back then, we were children (those of us who played them at the time) and we didn't have fully developed brains and hand-eye coordination.

Nah, I didn't found Megaman hard when I was a kid, and I'm not an especially good player.
In fact, I think I might have been better at the time than today (but then I'm just getting old).

[nocturnus]

To answer your first question the way you told me that search google and that I didn't know how to do it.


Second question I know that you are new based on how we talked about your previous posts in different topic related to which build and specs you should play and use in DSIII (your torrented version or something like that) (which is fine nothing wrong with being new at all tbh). I am sure that was you unless it was someone else and I could be wrong.


It's not about being fan or not it's about adapting and knowing the gameplay. I will give you an example, I am also a fan of the Witcher series and I can definately say that the combat and the controls system even with controller is super garbage and super clunky (talking about the first Witcher game) it gets slightly better in Witcher 2 but still clunky and annoying and yet again it gets better in Witcher 3 but still annoying and clunky sometimes specially with the camera.

But about Souls series it's all about adapting and managing your stamina and the basic movements once you learn that you will see nothing wrong at all with the controls. In Witcher 1 I tried to adapt and use that same method to learn but it's still sooooo annoying now this is what I call indeed bad and horrible combat and controls system.

Nothing there suggests anger. It does suggest I think you're lazy. Saying something like: "you're the first one ever..." is silly, especially for games that are renown for their artificial difficulty (poor controls, bad camera angles, latency, input lag, etc.).

I understand why you would think that based on that thread, yes. Not new to the series though, I just hadn't played DS3 since it was released.

Indeed, the Witcher games have even worse controls. But that's not the only bad thing about those games.

You get used to DS control, but they are far from responsive.

[tyrlaan]

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

I proudly wear the invisible badge for beating all three Ninja Gaiden games, thank you very much. Same is true of the Castlevania trilogy, but overall I found them much easier with only a few really nasty spots here and there.

But Ghost n' Goblins.... Ghost n FUCKING Goblins. That game still makes me twitch. I think I even struggled to beat that with cheat codes


I'd also add Rushin' Attack, which I finally managed to beat by using a cheese trick by playing multiplayer but really playing solo.


I remember Golgo 13 being somewhat difficult, but I forgave it since you got health back by smoking cigarettes and having sex.

Play nethack.

'nuff said

Aaaahahhahaa YES!

[Segus1992]

To answer your first question the way you told me that search google and that I didn't know how to do it.

Difference between arrogance and anger. Arrogant people generally lash out when they're not believed or taken to a higher standard than the "rest", regardless of whether what they say is true or not.

[Shinzai]

Old games were hard because they were often designed by hardcore gaming nerds, that wanted to make challenges for other gamers and nerds. Their games are defined by pattern recognition, twitch reactions, secrets that mostly just other gamers 'understand' how to access and so on. Even point and click adventures could kill you in the opening scenes of games.

Eventually, it was decided that gaming should be more 'accessible' and reach a 'broader audience'. Challenges were reduced, the concept of having lives and continues and failure states was gradually removed, with even minor punishments for being bad were considered 'unfair' and borderline 'abusive'. More money was invested as suits could see a way to mass-market games to people outside of gaming markets.

Now, when something like Dark Souls comes out, the old game nerds who are journalists flip out, heralding it as the second coming of Christ. As I said in the Dark Souls difficulty thread, it's no where near as difficult as a game with an actual finite number of attempts prior to a complete failure state. "Prepare To Die." - A tagline so emotive that it'll probably be quoted forever. It's highly illustrative of the state of gaming when Dark Souls was released. Gamers were not prepared to die in their games.

Soulsborne games however, bring the sense of older, harder games with them. They're intricately designed, with tough, but fair gameplay that demands you learn to recognise patterns, have moderately good reactions and punishes you lightly for failure. The games also feature secrets that reward people willing to explore the subtle and less obvious content in the games.

Now, don't get me wrong, there are still plenty of games and always have been plenty of games, that still kill the player and pose a hard challenge. However, they've always been fringe and niche in ways that most of their fanbases will never realise, 'cult' if you will.

So, TLDR; Games have been made easier over time to adjust to the tastes of a more casual audience, as well as for those with less time to spend gaming and those completely new to the world of gaming. The size of the gaming market increases year on year and is possibly one of the most valuable forms of media in the world right now. So while we'll never return to an era of "Nintendo Hard" gaming, we'll always have such a diverse range of games available that it's irrelevant.

[nocturnus]

Could certain button mappings like the kick and jump functions been done better, as it was improved upon in the sequels? Certainly. The controls themselves though are very very far away from "horrible" territory with how responsive movements and actions are to player input.

Let's agree to disagree.

I find the controls horrible and it's pretty obvious many others do to. Nevertheless, I endure them because unlike The Witcher 3, the rest of the game is great.

It isn't limited to Dark Souls though; many games suffer from similar issues. Take most Call of Duty games for instance, the mouse lag is ridiculous even after having applied fixes like Markc. If you only play CoD, chances are you don't notice it and won't recognise the issue when someone complains about it. If you play shooters with (actual) raw input, you will notice it.

[breadisfunny]

Because they came around the same time as the arcade games, which were purposely designed to be difficult, but also 'rewarding' to make you want to put in another 25c to keep playing. Similar game dev thoughts just went into the games that were obviously on console and no longer needed extra money to be put in to keep playing.

also because these games were pretty short by todays standards.

[Yoshimiko]

I'm going to assume that Super Mario Bros can be beaten in minutes by using the warp pipes to skip most of the levels?

The any% speedrun is 4:58, the warpless run is 19:02. Some "For fun" runs: Minus World is 2 min 33s, Any% Allstar is 5:02 and warpless Allstars is 19:58.

[frostare]

So, TLDR; Games have been made easier over time to adjust to the tastes of a more casual audience, as well as for those with less time to spend gaming

Do not forget that making games "hard", or cryptic in case of RPGs, was the most effective way they had back then to make them "long" or at least last longer in the hands of a player. This particularly happened in games that kept no score and the objective was to see the ending (not that worth it, usually) or beat the bad guy (now this WAS worthy, I grew up in that era).