The difficulty levels of retro games versus modern games

um7y1h83ge06nx

So I've started to seriously use my Retropie I put together and it has brought home to me again that old games were just so much harder than modern ones.

Modern games I will usually play a notch or two above default. However if there is a difficulty option available I'd play retro games at an easy setting, at least at the start.

We take it for granted these days that we can progress through games, nearly every modern game I own I know I can most likely finish If I haven't done so already.

Playing Streets of Rage 2 there and after I used my continues you get a rock solid Game Over. No checkpoint to go back to, just the start screen.

At least spent my youth in the 16-bit era, must be a huge shock to younger gamers to go back to these games! :P

CiDeRmAn

A lot of older games took their inspiration, sometimes on purpose, with a port, sometimes by the company they keep, in terms of genre, from arcade games, and those are geared towards sucking down as many coins as possible.
Hence, we get the Shmups and other single/scrolling titles that have continues and finite lives and so on.
It was only really with the likes of, of all things, the Lego titles, that introduced infinite lives as no big thing, it was the co-operation and fun within the game itself that was the draw.
PC gamers and players of retro stuff via emulation were spoiled with easy save states, mostly whenever they wanted.
This had an effect on games there, and in this regard the likes of Doom on console is slightly better than PC, as on the latter some of the threat was undermined by being able to save, while console owners had to wait for the levels end before exhaling.

CathalDublin

While PC games had save games take the likes of Day of the Tentacle vs whats the modern day equivalent, say the Simpsons game for the xbox360, it just tells you what to do for the whole ****ing game. DOTT you'd be stuck for hours and it could be the simplest thing but you had to use your brain, same with the monkey island games.

CiDeRmAn

Yeah, well there's tons of handholding in modern games, from the crappy unskippable tutorials to sign posting throughout the game of where to go and what to do next.
And even in the big games, like Batman Arkham, you see a very produced and polished product with ones player inputs never really feeling like they are controlling the action, lots of context sensitive stuff that divorces the player from the onscreen action.
On the other hand, none of that nonsense on Robotron or Galaga!
It's something I appreciate in Elite Dangerous on the Xbox One, it gives you tools and controls and then tasks you to figure it all out, from docking to buying and selling.
Similarly, the Soul's series lets the community post the tutorials and assistance, bring the notion of the FAQ into the game without it being in the game and without it being a spoiling thing, instead enhancing. I watched plenty of videos of people succeeding against Rom but, in the end, I had to do the hard slogging and figure it all out before besting it.

Retr0gamer

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

This had an effect on games there, and in this regard the likes of Doom on console is slightly better than PC, as on the latter some of the threat was undermined by being able to save, while console owners had to wait for the levels end before exhaling.

So much wrong with that statement. PC Doom was way better than on consoles and quick saving was part of it. Sure you could save scum but it was up to the player what they wanted to do like using infinite continues. Quick saves meant you had more control and could get past bits of frustration at your own pace or challenge yourself. On console you could only save on a slow piece of crap flash memory after each level or have to replay.

I'm very sick of games holding the players hand and being so careful not to lose the players attention in the first few minutes that they have to control every thing and teach the player as if it's their first videogame. It's so refreshing to jump into something like the Souls series or Xenoblade and discover and learn how to play the game. It's more rewarding but the risk averse nature of modern mega budget games means that this type of game is dead outside of indie games and rare exceptions

johnny_ultimate

Retr0gamer wrote: »

It's so refreshing to jump into something like the Souls series or Xenoblade and discover and learn how to play the game.

I wouldn't put Xenoblade anywhere near Souls, TBH. Xenoblade X particularly is a mess of over-complicated and half-baked systems that mistake busyness with depth. The Souls games on the other hand have subtle systems that legitimately reveal more nuance and depth the more you explore and practice. They're vaguely explained to reward the player in the long-term, whereas Xenoblade X is under-explained because many of the systems are too nonsensical and poorly thought out in the first place, a mess of confusing menus and mechanics.

As much as I deplore some of the hand-holding in modern games - there's many games that are still offering you basic tutorial prompts for nearly the whole thing! - I also don't think 'difficulty' in and of itself is a good thing. All depends on how its used. Many retro games simply used it as a way to pad themselves out - rote-learning and pixel perfect difficulty spikes aren't really particularly inspired or worthwhile design tools. Some games can be thrillingly challenging and engaging, absolutely. But especially given the various directions games have evolved that's no longer one of the core tools available to keep players engaged. There'll always be room for you Platinum style games, whole new genres have sprung up defined by their pretty much complete lack of challenge. A game just needs to be able to confidently explore what it is.

If you want to see a modern game that you actively learn to play, The Witness is a goddamn masterpiece of understatement and complexity. Without any overt explanation to the player, it builds a web of interconnecting mechanics and rules that constantly expand and reinvent themselves. Playing it alongside the hopelessly clunky Xenoblade Chronicles X makes it seem even more articulate and nuanced, and its puzzles are both challenging and rewarding.

um7y1h83ge06nx

Talking about tutorials I remember Far Cry Blood Dragon took the p*ss out of modern tutorials with theirs.

Maybe some of this can also be attributed to demographics. Back in the 90's gamers were much younger and so had less spending powers to buy games. Games had to last, an easy game you could breeze through back then would be considered a waste of money. Now with gamers being older we are less concerned about how long a game will last us, we probably have a backlog of games given our increased spending power.

It takes huge adjustment to go back to retro games - last night I was playing the first level of Jungle Strike and it felt like my helicopter was made of paper, got wiped out by missile trucks. No handy introduction.

CiDeRmAn

Demon's Souls, dropped you in the sh1t and off you go and die.
At least with the sequels and Bloodborne you knew what misery and bliss awaited you.
With Demon's Souls you had half a notion it was going to be another 3rd person hack and slash, full of weapons, blood and death. And you'd be right, except that it'd be you doing much of the dying.

eddhorse

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

If you want to see a modern game that you actively learn to play, The Witness is a goddamn masterpiece of understatement and complexity. Without any overt explanation to the player, it builds a web of interconnecting mechanics and rules that constantly expand and reinvent themselves.

Agreed, The Witness is amazing !! Cant descibe it better than your fancy sentence.

Shapey Fiend

To me there are different types of difficulty. I don't generally dislike arcade or older console difficulty because the games are short and designed to be played in, say, under 25 minutes. You die then you go back to the start where things are easy and then the difficulty slowly builds. If there are enemy patterns or level design quirks to familiarise yourself with it's not so bad cos there only a small amount of it and things don't blend together like they would if there was more of it.

A couple of years into the 32 bit era it became more commonplace for every action game rather than just RPGs and such to have level save progression. You turn on your console and you're on level 5 and won't be going back to replay any of the earlier ones. Because you've essentially got infinite continues they have to make make the difficulty spike a lot more. Something like PS2 Shinobi is a fine example of this. It's 10 times harder than NES Ninja Gaiden as far as I'm concerned. Plus by the time you're 10 hours you'll be hitting this bloody wall at a difficulty spike where you die on the same boss 50 times. And you're trying to do it 'cold' because you haven't played 20 minutes of gradually increasing difficulty to get your reflexes snapping.

So in summary I think modern games when they're hard are way harder. Also if you play games online you'll be used to getting absolutely smashed by feens who've put hundreds of hours into their particular game of choice.

o1s1n

Shapey Fiend wrote: »

Something like PS2 Shinobi is a fine example of this. It's 10 times harder than NES Ninja Gaiden as far as I'm concerned. Plus by the time you're 10 hours you'll be hitting this bloody wall at a difficulty spike where you die on the same boss 50 times. And you're trying to do it 'cold' because you haven't played 20 minutes of gradually increasing difficulty to get your reflexes snapping.

So in summary I think modern games when they're hard are way harder. Also if you play games online you'll be used to getting absolutely smashed by feens who've put hundreds of hours into their particular game of choice.

Don't mean to make you feel old, but Shinobi on the PS2 is 14 years old...does that really fit into the category of modern games?