"Retro gamers" should be able to beat these games

[Deleted member 660650]

because of popularity, retro difficulty in the current mindset is associated mainly with NES games, but if you put the NES on a difficulty tier list, it would be actually somewhere in the middle.

Top difficulty systems in the 80s-90s would be actually the arcade coin eaters with the arcade controls meant for adult hands and afterwards the various computer systems were many games shipped without any serious quality control, plus you had to figure out the technical aspects of the game.
Back then I considered players who finished those arcade and computer games much more skilled than myself who beat a bunch of NES games. Because I had tried those games too and found them ultra difficult.

Whereas nowadays everything is streamlined across both consoles and computers as it is impossible to master everything.

But back then, even if you mastered few NES games, you were a small fry in the gaming world

IMO NES games can have their own "hard" gameplay for many reasons but the hardest games I ever played are on Sega Genesis. I can name a few to give you idea:

Back to the Future Part 3

The Immortal

The Pagemaster

Doom Troopers

Chakan: The Forever Man

NES games are actually child friendly therefore once you learn the ropes you can even beat Silver Surfer just fine. Silver Surfer is just "harder MegaMan" in design philosophy but adds stupid "touch walls and die" shit. But when it comes to Sega Genesis games shit goes beyond learning patterns, it goes beyond skill and luck is involved at that point. The games gets into the realm of "dying simulators". As a result even when Arcade games could be unfair but once you learn the patterns you would waste less coins and you would end up finishing the whole game (if it even has an end) with single coin. But Sega Genesis tried to differentiate itself from Nintendo so their target audiance was older teens and adults and that's why they increased the difficulty into a nonsense level lol.

 

[petran79]

IMO NES games can have their own "hard" gameplay for many reasons but the hardest games I ever played are on Sega Genesis. I can name a few to give you idea:

Back to the Future Part 3

The Immortal

The Pagemaster

Doom Troopers

Chakan: The Forever Man

NES games are actually child friendly therefore once you learn the ropes you can even beat Silver Surfer just fine. Silver Surfer is just "harder MegaMan" in design philosophy but adds stupid "touch walls and die" shit. But when it comes to Sega Genesis games shit goes beyond learning patterns, it goes beyond skill and luck is involved at that point. The games gets into the realm of "dying simulators". As a result even when Arcade games could be unfair but once you learn the patterns you would waste less coins and you would end up finishing the whole game (if it even has an end) with single coin. But Sega Genesis tried to differentiate itself from Nintendo so their target audiance was older teens and adults and that's why they increased the difficulty into a nonsense level lol.

At least Genesis games had some basic quality control. On computers some games were plainly impossible without cheats

Eg many players never managed to beat these games. They could be finished in 15 minutes and have a crappy ending, but in order to prolong the games, they made them very difficult, especially to newcomers. While on consoles you'd play 2 hours guaranteed

 

[deceptionfalls]

beating Shatterhand with no save states no nothing? hell nah dude i will NOT rawdog that final stage, those platforming sections are insanely difficult.

play whatever you want how you want, just dont rob yourself of the fun of it, thats my take

 

[snes9x]

The hardest NES game I've beat is Super Mario Bros. 3 lol, and that's well on the tamer side of platformers of the era. I've gotten pretty far in Gimmick! though. I'm too proud to use save states so if a game is too hard I just shrug and say oh well, skill issue.

 

[Sweetmint]

"Nah, you aren't a real gamer" until you've completed any old Monster hunter game basically before world.

 

[trickybus]

"Nah, you aren't a real gamer" until you've completed any old Monster hunter game basically before world.

Back in my day, bullfangos clipped through walls to take us out and we liked it

 

[UnDubious]

"you guys remember when gaming was fresh AF and they had no idea how games were suppoesd to work so they made them unecessarily hard as a throw over from the days of the arcades and also because if they didn't everyone would realize there was only about 30 minutes of game without the constant repeated attempts? I think that you should be able to beat those if you want to call yourself a gamer."

Nah, I'm good. If I have to give up my gamer card because I don't give a shit about Castlevania, Ninja Gaiden, or whatever the fuck else bullshit NES games this guy thinks is the gold standard you need to have reached then so be it.

Fuck it. We're out here making declairations, then you're retro gaming opinions don't matter unless you've beaten Gaelco's Thunder Hooper in it's original Spain. No imports bitches. Why the fuck not.

"The days of the arcades" were very much ongoing so there was no throwover involved, and yes, difficulty was necessary since you could only fit so much game in a cartridge. But a lot of the time the challenge can be nice. It depends on the game. I beat Ninja Gaiden but honestly I don't like it either, nor do I like Castlevania or most NES action-platformers (Vice: Project Doom is great, though). I'm more of a Genesis guy.
His video is mostly a half-joking rant about how retro gaming spaces are filled with people who don't even play the games.

 

[Deleted member 660650]

Back in my day, bullfangos clipped through walls to take us out and we liked it

So you are not a real gamer if you are not a masochist!!! lol

 

[Ikagura]

I'm too proud to use save states so if a game is too hard I just shrug and say oh well, skill issue.

"Pride" can be detrimental sometimes.

 

[shadowcat]

I don't think he takes preferences or genre into account, which is a big factor. Maybe someone can beat those hard as nails platformers, but is terrible at puzzle or RPG games. Just because you are good at one genre doesn't necessarily mean your skills transfer over.

 

[Lee__Kanker]

Good video, this guy got a new subscriber. Unfortunately a lot of retrogamers and colletors online that are just there to sell you shit.
Or that just buy them, barely play them, put them on the shelf and go on repeating the same 20 opinions over and over; because they didn't really struggle against them enough to form their own opinions and neither did the comments
Because of those guys I can kiss goodbye to old consoles and accessories being affordable, damn 70€ for the asciiware ps1 stick..

The example he brought up with castlevania is perfect: lots of people still dont get that stuff like the Delay from when you press the button to Simon whipping and his stiff jump is how the game is designed. The challenge to play around your limitations IS where the fun of the game comes from, it's mostly a game about Spacing and planning your every move before doing it; because every jump and swing near enemies or near a pit is meaningful.
If you wanna see what castlevania with "good" controls looks like, play as the joke character Maria in rondo of blood, and see how she trivializes almost the whole game.

To this day, even indies and low budget, don't understand this; if you played football and you could just grab the ball with your hand, the whole skill aspect of the game is dead. Limitations is the mother of invention. And limitations also breeds player expression, because if you have every option you just end up reducing the game to 1 or 2 strategies that are better than everything else

They also dont get that action games of the past where to made to be Dense and Short, and that playing it once was only the beginning and replays is where the Real game starts, where you learn all the little intricacies of the movement or combat or platforming and all the enemy interactions.

As a result a lot of these new retro style games are often way too long and easy (shovel knight) or never want to limit the player (ragebound), and give you mechanics that simplify and trivialize enemy encounters and movement; like easy to execute parries and dodge rolls.

 

[Ikagura]

To this day, even indies and low budget, don't understand this; if you played football and you could just grab the ball with your hand, the whole skill aspect of the game is dead. Limitations is the mother of invention. And limitations also breeds player expression, because if you have every option you just end up reducing the game to 1 or 2 strategies that are better than everything else

I think Shovel Knight managed to modernize the controls without making it too trivial.

As a result a lot of these new retro style games are often way too long and easy (shovel knight) or never want to limit the player (ragebound), and give you mechanics that simplify and trivialize enemy encounters and movement; like easy to execute parries and dodge rolls.

Sorry but how the hell is Shovel Knight "too long"? Also easy is subjective depending of the player's intrinsic skill. Some would find Super Mario Bros 2 The Lost Levels easy while finding Star Soldier hard and vice versa.

 

[Lee__Kanker]

I think Shovel Knight managed to modernize the controls without making it too trivial.


Sorry but how the hell is Shovel Knight "too long"? Also easy is subjective depending of the player's intrinsic skill. Some would find Super Mario Bros 2 The Lost Levels easy while finding Star Soldier hard and vice versa.

I dont have a problem with the controls in shovel knight, I liked that you had to time the shovel swing if you wanted to do consecutive hits; and that you cant bounce over everything because theres arial enemies and obstacles. I do have it with Ragebound; when you can half ass a Ninja Gaiden level by going through things with i-frames and parries you're doing it wrong!

SN is too long because the levels are like three times longer than something from castlevania or rockman or ninja gaiden, while being way less challenging; they have 4 checkpoints after all.
Because of that I never got into it because I get bored, even if I try to make it harder by breaking the checkpoins.
Rewarding the player for not using the checkpoints is a nice idea, I am a fan of making checkpoints a resource;
But used within its levels, it just means I have to go through a long unexciting level before I get to that part where I died.
So I expected more for a game that I thought was for people who have already beaten most of its inspirations.

Meanwhile when I game over on level 5 of castlevania, sure it stings but it's not dull to replay because every screen is intense so I cant really go on autopilot.
And even when I do manage to blast through a level I'm Happy because I'm like "This bastard took me all evening now! Now I'm so good I can style on it!"

I had a similar problem with the lenght of Rockman 11's levels, the levels used to be way shorter in the fc games;

In general I like stuff that's shorter and denser.

For example I love how in God Hand and Viewtiful Joe the levels Are long: but they’re split into chunks, in which you can save or buy stuff: I can just pop in, have a blast for 40 min or an hour and leave it for later without having to wait for the game to slowly ramp up in intensity every time; just like an arcade game

Sure, difficulty is subjective, but you can still quantify it: Mario 2 JPN us labeled "for super players" because the target audience is meant to have mastered the original so much there's nothing for them to do. Almost nobody will finish it on their first try without a game over, you're expected to bump your head against it until it cracks.
I'm sure you yourself can still tell when a game is made for legacy players who want to push themselves or beginners/people not playing for a challenger; I could recommend Star Soldier or Gunhed to someone wanting to get into shmups, while I would have to be very cheeky to recommend doing a 1cc of Gunbird

Shmups and arcade games are very fascinating in this regard because they are often balanced around the top 5% of players: if you just have a decent guy hogging the cabinet for an hour the game is actively losing money, so games like Gradius or Gunbird have a hidden rank system to prevent just that! But it cant be so prohibitive or flat that players dont wanna bother, so it's gotta be thrilling!

Sorry for the walltext, I really like going into difficulty design hahaha

 

[ThirteeTooBeets]

But what if I don't wanna

 

[hazys]

The video is the opinion of someone whose mindset is stuck in the early 2000s, when being a "retro gamer" was equated with being a "hardcore gamer" who could beat the most infamously hard 8- and 16-bit games. Nowadays being a retro gamer might simply mean that you're into PS1 JRPGs, not Battletoads.

Personally I'm glad that we as a culture are somewhat over worshipping the "super hard" action games of the 90s. Some of them are very good, but others are just frustrating.

 

[Graw]

I don't think I ever beat any of the nes games I owned as a kid except for Zelda and Mario 3 with the warp whistles. I think I only got past the snow level in Ninja Gaiden 2 once or twice. I only kind of skimmed the video so the only games I noticed were the Ninja Gaiden games and shadow of the ninja. I have since as an adult gone back and beat a few old nes games, some of them without save states or anything, but I don't really care that much about going back and finishing most of those games. For me at least, it wasn't really until the n64 came out that fully completing a game and doing and unlocking everything was really something I cared about. There were a few snes gamed I played to completion but that was mostly because I liked the games, not because I was trying to finish everything.

 

[Ikagura]

The video is the opinion of someone whose mindset is stuck in the early 2000s, when being a "retro gamer" was equated with being a "hardcore gamer" who could beat the most infamously hard 8- and 16-bit games. Nowadays being a retro gamer might simply mean that you're into PS1 JRPGs, not Battletoads.

And that mindset is quite antiquated if I may say.

I could even say PS2 and GameCube games since those consoles are a quarter century old.

Personally I'm glad that we as a culture are somewhat over worshipping the "super hard" action games of the 90s. Some of them are very good, but others are just frustrating.

Back when games became more "streamlined" so that even people who never touched a gamepad before could enjoy the latest narrative focused AAA on the PS3 and Xbox 360 the old school crowd of gamers went back for retro games (thus playing mostly 8-bits games) or 2D indie games (which were also sometimes in Pixel Art for the nostalgia of that style) which was coincidentally also hard (Megaman and Super Meat Boy were arguably more challenging than something like Heavy Rain).

But that dichotomy about "casual vs hardcore" was a bit too restrictive and simplistic when it feels like you were either one or the other without nuances.

AVGN and many other retro game testers have proven that many devs back then didn't know good balance for their game and what made some old school hard games good was because they were mechanically great with a level design to follow. Spelunker was hard for the wrong reasons.

 

[petran79]

And that mindset is quite antiquated if I may say.

I could even say PS2 and GameCube games since those consoles are a quarter century old.


Back when games became more "streamlined" so that even people who never touched a gamepad before could enjoy the latest narrative focused AAA on the PS3 and Xbox 360 the old school crowd of gamers went back for retro games (thus playing mostly 8-bits games) or 2D indie games (which were also sometimes in Pixel Art for the nostalgia of that style) which was coincidentally also hard (Megaman and Super Meat Boy were arguably more challenging than something like Heavy Rain).

But that dichotomy about "casual vs hardcore" was a bit too restrictive and simplistic when it feels like you were either one or the other without nuances.

AVGN and many other retro game testers have proven that many devs back then didn't know good balance for their game and what made some old school hard games good was because they were mechanically great with a level design to follow. Spelunker was hard for the wrong reasons.

Back then there were narrative games too but because of hardware limitations they were limited to fmv point and click adventure games, which was a niche genre due to the difficult riddles. Or else for action fmv you had to resort to arcade shooters.

Though finishing pnc adventure games without resorting to solutions, was also considered hardcore.

later they incorporated fmv to all kinds of genres.

 

[Ikagura]

Back then there were narrative games too but because of hardware limitations they were limited to fmv point and click adventure games, which was a niche genre due to the difficult riddles. Or else for action fmv you had to resort to arcade shooters.

Right but they were niche and mostly on PC (well, micros if I wanted to be more technical) whereas on consoles we got many more action games.

I kinda didn't like when FMV point'n click made things obtuse for the sake of being longer though. That's not really demanding skill but rather trying items with anything around...

Though finishing pnc adventure games without resorting to solutions, was also considered hardcore.

Now that's true but not sure if it was challenging in a goods way.

I'd still go back to the video and say that it kinda feels a bit weird, people can also enjoy retro games without resorting to play it like when it came out.

 

[Retro Doomer]

I would say you do not need to beat certain games in order to call yourself a gamer or even a retro gamer saying that you need to play certain games and even beating them is bullocks in my humble opinion, and of course you need to play some games to call yourself a gamer but what matters is that you play a game that is fun to you if the game feels like a chore and not like fun it may be not the right game for you.
You are not obliged to comply to such foolery your time is precious and should be spend on games you actually like and not games you fell pressured into playing.
I also found this video

 

[petran79]

Right but they were niche and mostly on PC (well, micros if I wanted to be more technical) whereas on consoles we got many more action games.

I kinda didn't like when FMV point'n click made things obtuse for the sake of being longer though. That's not really demanding skill but rather trying items with anything around...


Now that's true but not sure if it was challenging in a goods way.

I'd still go back to the video and say that it kinda feels a bit weird, people can also enjoy retro games without resorting to play it like when it came out.

Fmv games were also very expensive for those type of niche games and were one of the reasons Sierra went over budget and dived into financial difficulties later on. Eg Ripper featured popular Hollywood actors and sold half a million only, whereas nowadays current marketing would sell 10 or 20 times as much.

The reason they were difficult is that their target audience were adult computer owners who at that time typed commands and also knew few basics of programming languages, eg Basic or Pascal, so they had to think out of the box

 

[Franz_Thieppel]

I agree with the point about letting people review and advise you on which retro gaming gear to buy when they're just collectors and don't even play the games all that much.

Reminds me of how annoying it is to watch controller reviews telling you how good or bad the d-pad is by people who never touched a fighting game for more than 5 minutes.

 

[Bootyfan]

I don't think he takes preferences or genre into account, which is a big factor. Maybe someone can beat those hard as nails platformers, but is terrible at puzzle or RPG games. Just because you are good at one genre doesn't necessarily mean your skills transfer over.

Lolo is kicking my ass right now, and I remember breezing through it about a decade ago. I must have lost some brain cells along the way.

As for being 'hardcore' I've come to find i have a coordination disorder, so I don't beat myself up for not getting through certain levels. Realizing this, I'm patient enough to know it just takes me 3-5x longer to pick up controls of a game or enemy patterns. Although I did love Super Metroid enough back in the day to complete it on original hardware.

 

[Lena CE]

God this video is so hard to sit through. I only made it about 14 minutes in, I know what the rest of it is gonna be so I won't really bother finishing. Its a lot like Electric Underground videos where I agree with a lot of the core points being made about hard games being good and how modern games handhold and design for casual intuitiveness and lack of friction to a fault. It just sucks that creators like this couch these reasonable and interesting statements in weird "us vs them" rhetoric be it

Like yea, retro collectors to buy more games than they finish or buy games as shelfpieces that mean little to them aside from bragging about what they're worth are lame. Yes people can get too caught up in trying to optimize and modernize their retro setups when the reality is that the games are rad no matter what. Yes modern big budget gaming has a lot of issues and a lot of those issues have cultivated a lot of modern gamers to disrespect and disregard retro for unjustified/petty reasons. Do we really have to try and rip away "gamer cards" tho cause someone isn't as hardcore as you? Do you really need to flex how efficiently you beat these notoriously difficult games like it matters?

It's like how a lot of people just can't let go of God Hand's low score review by IGN. People just gotta accept that not everyone will see what they see in certain things or just have a different mindset. "Beat these NES platformers or I don't respect ur opinions" as if NES platformers or SHMUPs are some apex genre that only the Truest Elite Gamers can enjoy. It's just so eye-roll inducing and takes away from otherwise great discussion points.

Ultimately people just need to share what they love with people they enjoy talking to. If someone doesn't love what you love or you don't enjoy what they have to say, you just leave that space and move on. Life is too short and there are too many dope things to experience. I'm more concerned with modern gamers who just write off old games as jank and act like RE4 needs a remake because you can't move while aiming than I am with some retro content creator who can't 1cc Contra Hard Corps cause that just isn't what they're here for. I'm just rambling and repeating myself atp though.

So long as you're playing games and sharing those experiences/stories with others, you're doin it right.

Post automatically merged: Nov 30, 2025

I agree with the point about letting people review and advise you on which retro gaming gear to buy when they're just collectors and don't even play the games all that much.

Reminds me of how annoying it is to watch controller reviews telling you how good or bad the d-pad is by people who never touched a fighting game for more than 5 minutes.

Yea this kind of stuff is always just kind of tough though. Even within expert spaces there are large degrees of preference. I prefer bat top sticks with heavy springs, I want my buttons to be heavy and have a more "matte" kind of feel rather than something smooth like most prefer. Likewise the kind of dpad someone can prefer changes. Someone will swear by the Sega Saturn JP dpad while someone else will win SF4 evo on a PS1 pad or beat everyone's ass on a PS2 pad for years and years.

That said, I think some things like showcasing to my friends that the Switch Pro Controller's dpad sucks by showing them just how much easier it is to wall jump on a better dpad can be useful. But that moreso comes down to that dpad failing on such a fundamental level that its less a matter of preference and moreso that its shittily made.

 

[Ikagura]

God this video is so hard to sit through. I only made it about 14 minutes in, I know what the rest of it is gonna be so I won't really bother finishing. Its a lot like Electric Underground videos where I agree with a lot of the core points being made about hard games being good and how modern games handhold and design for casual intuitiveness and lack of friction to a fault. It just sucks that creators like this couch these reasonable and interesting statements in weird "us vs them" rhetoric be it.

I started to find EU kinda annoying when he tackles non shmup subjects to be honest.

And he also misses the point about several other games.

Technically even more casual games like Animal Crossing are retro today and there are still hard games made even in 2025.

Too many arguments about game difficulty are falling into the rather easy "old good new bad" kind of fallacy.