Are Retro Games Too Hard? - Retro Bird 

Games played: Contra Hard Corps (0:00), Jackal (0:10), Vectorman (0:19), Super Castlevania IV (1:00), Super Mario Bros. 3 (1:10)

I think I enjoy the repetition of these old games and getting better on each playthrough with practice. More modern games are often designed for essentially one playthough that you're expected to get through without much trouble. However, having to start each playthrough from scratch and gradually figuring more things out feels a lot more rewarding and addictive to me.

While there are still plenty of classic games that are stupidly hard I’ve found that a lot of games I used to think were hard was actually just 9 year old me missing the patterns and clues that developers were hinting at for me to learn from.

It is pretty satisfying to complete a challenging game. I think many people say that all retro games are hard as many of them don't have the quality of life features that they have grown used to in modern games. I think part of it is that some retro game developers made it so you wouldn't beat the game too quickly (the days of rentals) and other times it was just due to technical limitations. I like that many retro games teach patience and reward skillful play. Yes, you don't unlock achievements, but just getting a bit further each time to see more of the game was an achievement of itself. Most retro games aren't "impossible" and can be completed once you practice. I beat Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts through a lot of trial and error. Part of the fun of retro games is figuring things out and learning from your mistakes to ultimately achieve victory!

The problem with retro games being “too hard” or not is mainly due to the hobby, imo. I have been playing retro games all my life from Atari to the present & some games I’ll never be good at. Take for an example, I was at a gaming convention years ago playing Contra, a game I can get to the 4th or 5th level without the Konami code. I decided to play it that day & use the code when someone rudely asked me: “You have to use the Konami code to play Contra?!” Like I was less of a gamer, & should be shooed out of the convention in shame. This type of attitude is very negative & annoying, why does everyone have to beat all hard games, or own “rare” games & accessories? Why does the hobby feel like a competition? I mean, sure I own rare games & have a ton of consoles, but so what? I proudly play games like T&C Surf Designs, or Super Dodge Ball because they’re fun & I go back to them over & over again. Ironically though I still enjoy some hard games, Ghosts & Goblins, & Ninja Gaiden are great because they’re fair, you get unlimited continues. Unlike a game like Gradius which is cheap, gives you no continues & is next to impossible. Too much emphasis is put on playing “hard” games, play what you enjoy, whether it’s Duck Tales or Mega Man, it shouldn’t matter as long as you’re having fun.

I like hard games that are still fair. It's frustrating when in a fighting game it just seems like the computer is letting me hit them, but equally annoying when it just reads my inputs and blocks literally anything I throw at it. Every game needs to have balance, and that's a part of game design that is usually overlooked.

I always developed a rhythm and memorization with retro games as a kid. Now as an adult, I sometimes forget and need to find that “in the zone” moment. Honestly, it’s like learning to ride a bike again after 20yrs. You’ll never forget.

I need a full length version of that ending music, it's just so good!

I think it's all about adaptation. Older game's were definitely difficult because of the arcade era. I think developers who transitioned to console from arcades still had the "eat all quarters at any price" mentality. 😂

You know what the retro community needs?! A comprehensive list of all games for each console, in order of difficulty! Then, new collectors/new retro gamers can assess what games they like, what difficulty rating they are, and then know what other games are around that difficulty/enjoyment level!!!!! You could create one and make a video about it!!

I used to beat these old NES games when I was 8-11 years old. But I had a lot of patience for them back then because they were the new and exciting thing Trying to get through Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse or the first TMNT today is pure torture

“I caught my copy of dark souls asking ghouls and ghosts for an autograph once” - bravo my friend

Some of us are like video game thrill-seekers, always looking for the next hardest game to sink some time into to master. Usually you want to do things in games you can't do in real life, like driving through traffic as fast as you can while doing some crazy stunts for example, I don't have much tension or adrenaline pushing activities in my daily life so I get my fix from playing challenging games.

I think difficulty in games is a balance between the time invested required, and the feeling of progression. For example, you can take a hard retro game that takes an average person 8 hours to beat but they will spend most of that time re doing the same things, so the feeling of progression may not be super clear. Whereas in an average modern game that takes 8 hours to beat you won't die super frequently, and spend most of your time reaching new places and seeing clear progression. So in the end, I feel it's just a matter of your personal preference on how you want to spend your time, and what feels rewarding for you.

Because it adds to the mystique: What’s past the third level on Mickey Mousecapade, or can I really beat Little Nemo The Dream Master? How far can I get on a charming game with lackluster controls like Bart vs. The World? Also, beating challenging games like Batman, the Mario games, and the Mega Man games as well as progressing farther than you thought was possible on hard games is SOOOO satisfying.

Save states are great for practice. I used to drill hard games straight up until I was able to get that no death run. Save states are a short cut to develop the skills necessary to eventually beat difficult games completely unassisted.

The idea of "its creators meant it to be this hard" falls apart when a game had the difficulty increased from the Japanese original to the US release. Looking at you, Contra Hard Corps, Streets of Rage 3, and almost anything from Working Designs!

A good level of *fair* difficulty makes for much more satisfaction when you do finally beat the game. If a game is to easy and ensures that you will beat it, there’s somewhat of a ‘hollowness’ to completing it. I prefer the heart-pumping, sweaty hands, jumping up and down, giving the tv screen the middle finger upon completion, type of victories 😝

Louis Castle (SNES Lion King game director) explained that they ramped up the difficulty of early levels because DIsney decided they wanted to tackle Blockbuster rentals. Their analytics showed that people wouldn't buy a game if they completed a large proportion of it in 6-8 hours play and so games were adjusted in difficulty to prevent that happening. To me, that's not a good reason to raise a difficulty curve but explains why more games of this time aren't as approachable as they should have been.

Challenging, yes. But it take less time to get the hang of them than newer games. Plus, they are complete, not like all modern games😉. Or they don't ask for money for having a particular weapon or skin.

Overcoming a really hard game is one of the most exciting and engaging experiences you can have with a game. I think it's important that the design, mechanics and tone really appeal to you before you have a good time struggling through. I definitely found that with God Hand, and it quickly became one of my all time favourites. If not, it can be really easy for me to drop off the game entirely. I don't think I'll ever make it past the first couple of levels of Alien Soldier, because there's just not enough for me to latch onto when I'm dying within seconds. I don't think there was the same expectation to make it through to the end when people bought a game before the late-90s. A game was just meant to entertain and amuse for a while, and if you died, maybe you'd do better when you tried again another day. I don't think I've ever completed a pinball video game, but there's still plenty I enjoy coming back to and seeing if I can do a little better all these years later.

At first the banana thing was like “heh that’s funny,” but following it with the “sinking your teeth” pun was pure genius.

I feel that retro games are like older books, they have styles that might be harder to comprehend for some modern day people while for others they might be able to adjust easier. As some may say Frankenstein is a slog to get through similar to how some might see some early RPGs, while others enjoy the different way it was written/made and can adjust to those who see it as a challenge.

That NES with a knife is one of the most terrifying things I’ve ever seen. I’m pretty sure that’s the stuff of nightmares.

I love how you tackled all the different mindsets that each player will have without being biased. Great video :)

This Nintendo holding a knife had me on the floor! LMAO!

This video has helped me!! :D I was starting to get frustrated and thinking to myself man this is just stressful and not fun..., but I was coming at it from the wrong angle because I'd actually forgotten what you point out about retro games in this video. It's about practice! If you wanna just put on a game to unwind and breeze through it like it's nothing and really enjoy it without having to use up much energy - then you've really gotta chuck on a game that you've already mastered ! This is also a good incentive to master other games by practicing them so there's more options of games to do that with .. A lot of people stop playing a game once they've mastered it and finished it ..but if you keep playing it , you only get more and more skilled at it and the game becomes super easy . Not easy in a boring way but easy in a more pleasurable way to play it..and it also enables you to be able to show off too lol... I'd forgotten that you need to practice to get to that point though lol I always think that because I've mastered this or that game that then any game I put on next should just be easy for me lol? I'd totally forgotten that retro gaming is about learning first and it's good that you keep dying or loosing in the begging because that IS the practice! lol retro games are complex , the better you get at them - the more fun playing them is ! For me anyway . I love being in games you see , so once I'm able to do everything like it's second nature , then that's when I go back and play the game start to finnish and seriously enjoy the journey! Not that the learning and practice can't be extremely fun also , but if you forget you need to learn and practice first - a game can become very stressful! Lol

I would go in a different direction and say that 2D sidescrollers can feel in average by its very nature harder (in terms of skills) than other genres. Just because of the simple fact that they require more inputs per minute, they are working in a far more limited space so just moving the character left or right is not very interesing. While in top down or 3D games just moving arround navigating this huge areas is a big part of the game. Even the more difficult games still can have minutes at a time of just moving from one place to another with the stick. 2D games can't do that, it wouldn't hold your attention for long, pressing the dpad to the right, they have to make you engage somehow with an obstacle or something. Someone that is used to playing 3D games might find it too jarring and intensive, starting super mario bros and imediately having to deal with an obstacle or die. And of course 2D sidescrollers are very prevelant in the retro era.

Personally I really enjoy a balance of hard & easy games, though I do enjoy playing some retro games I own on mini systems or emulators instead of the original carts due to save states. I find this gives a balance of difficulty staying the same, but allows for fitting into modern life & allow some games to be more respectful of my time. As for why I like hard games, it mostly boils down to 30+ years of playing games & being determined to get better at understanding what makes each game tick. Playing Elden Ring now, I've never felt so confident in a Souls game before because I've played a bunch of them, the game has some new mechanics that leaninto how I'd like to play (block counter) & I've gone with a new build that allows use of faith spells which gives me more tools than I'm used to.

The NES controller with a knife taped to it really got me good!

Darn you Battletoads! I can get to the last level with the warps but can't get to the final boss. It's a fun game that can go south very quickly. I think the challenge is what brings a player back to it. If the game could be beaten the first time it was played then players wouldn't remember it nearly as much.

I think it's because when we play these games, it always feels like "if I just had one more life, I coulda..." then you get a bit farther and that feeling hits you again on next game over. I will say one game I didn't expect to be near as tough was beating all the mario kart levels in Super Mario Kart. 150cc special cup is no joke. The other drivers cheat so hard with the ability to jump whenever, rubber-banding, knock you off stage, and there BS specials that somehow always found a way to land right in front of my kart. I was getting more heated failing to obtain gold, then I ever was restarting in Contra Hard Corps after a game over.

In Rick and morty, Morty used save states in one episode. It didn't end well for him.

Contra Hard Corps being at the beginning made me so happy lol absolute favorite Genesis game still!

I think one problem with Savestates is that they can make a game seem harder than it is intended. I've seen people brute force their way through heat man's stage in megaman 2 constantly falling into the lava thinking the game is way too hard but the megaman games are not designed so that you can first try every stage but instead find an easy one and use the items you get to make the harder ones more manageable. (Item 2 trivializes heat man's stage for example) Same with Death in Castlevania. The holy water wrecks him but it is at the beginning of the stage. A place you likely won't revisit when playing with save states.

I’ve been playing Madden since it came out. My favorite way to play now is by putting it in rookie and scoring 149 points. But I try to beat Eldon Ring as low a level as I can. I’m living my best life.

Retro Bird: "I've always made it through cutscenes! Never died once." Halo Reach players after finishing Lone Wolf: 👁👄👁

Retro Games seem harder for few reasons IMO. In the days of simpler electronics, CRT TVs, and digital joysticks pretty much every move you made in a game was almost instant. None of the HDMI/LCD/Bluetooth lags where there that we are used to today. Players purely relied on their reflexes. Another things is, the modern games are multi-dimensional. They rely on different skill sets with combination of 3D space and complicated inputs. In the old days you play on a 2D plane, with only couple buttons to deal with. The difficulty they had to add to those games were testing how good you were timing your jumps and shots. That is why modern games had to expand on different aspects which makes them feel easier if you compare 2 minutes of gameplay.

Oh and Zelda 2 was accidently hard because of the play testers wanting more difficulty. So weird.

Bro I love when you make those face expressions while talking about games I don't know what it is but they always Crack me up🤣🤣 love your channel it's mad underrated and keep up the good work!!.

old games are not too hard. and i honestly never quite got the complaint some people have on this point anyway, who wants to play games that are too easy? where would the challenge or the satisfaction be?

Most retro games are but in a way the harder the game the better you are at playing any game, I always love a challenge game because I feel rewarded just to finish them

One of the hardest games I played was Roger Rabbit for the NES. You are thrown into an open world and have no idea what you're supposed to do. You are instantly killed in the first screen by a falling potted plant or a stray cat jumping at you on the street corner. When you go outside, you are attacked by swooping vultures (that instantly kill Roger and thus you) or are flattened by cars, or are chased by the super-speedy Toon Patrol. And if you somehow make it to the end of the game (which I never did), the battle with Judge Doom is one of the toughest boss fights of all time.

I love the Ghouls 'n Ghosts autograph bit lmao 7:23

I think retro games were harder because their arcade counterparts. They was designed to suck quarters, thus were made hard to play.

For me, retro games are quite difficult! But if I play them long enough, I can get the hang of things. Sometimes you need to do tricky jumps while running forward, then quickly move backwards. Or time attacks just right. There’s a method to the madness! Ultimately, it’s all lots of fun!

I find them much more difficult than I did growing up, but I also am out of practice on a lot of them. Oh hey, if you've never died during a cutscene, try Resident Evil 4! Plenty of opportunities there. 😊 Great video!

if i was a pilot id tell the passengers there idiots all the time for not being able to fly. lol

Back in the 90's, I beat Zombies Ate My Neighbors (SNES) at least a couple of times and loved it. I tried playing recently and realized just how difficult it is. How did I beat this back in the day, I wondered? Well, I think I only went from one password to the next if I was satisfied I had saved all the victims I could, and not lost any lives. Of course, I had few games and time on my hands then, so that dedication was possible. I don't think I'm ever going to legitimately beat Zombies again. The End.

I think it's just that certain games that were popular were also difficult. Comix Zone jumps out at me. Like Mario and Sonic and Bubsy and Vectorman were all popular and beatable.

I wonder how many people who have a problem altering the intended design of a game also used a Game Genie when they were kids 🤔

Retro games were designed to be hard. Pre 3D era gaming, most developers still used that arcade mentality of "Be cheap as possible so the player can put in as much quarters as possible." Plus games were designed to be hard so they couldn't be beaten very easily. Retro games are much shorter. It wasn't until the 3D era when arcades were dying off that devs started backing off on the difficulty because they realized console games don't need to be cheap like arcade games.

I love your channel. Its so wholesome. Pls dont change

Dude, I love your content!!! Definitely cheers me up when I'm having a bad day

For "Hard Games" I usually exclude stuff like "Bullet'Hell" or even just the Side-scrolling Shmups in general. I've been stomped on by R-Type and Ikaruga that I just can't play the genre. I don't mind dying in a game but these make Elden Ring or Dark Souls trivial in comparison.

Beating Kid Chameleon was probably the most satisfying feeling I’ve had in a WHILE. Battletoads on the NES was also cool but I felt better with Kid Chameleon because I’m more nostalgic with that game. (Battletoads took me 5 months to beat but Kid Chameleon took me 8 years)

Funny- I heard the song at the end of your videos played on a different RU-vid Chanel “wild pogo”. I always thought it was a retro bird original :)

I think it is worse when you respawn real close to where you died, but you loose all of your powerups. In that scenario I'd rather restart from the beginning.

I always suspected my NES controller had a knife inside waiting to stab me, now my fears have been confirmed!

BRILLIANT. when I was a kid i used to get games for Christmas and birthdays, and that was it,twice a year. Unless you had a paper round and you saved like crazy! You had better get good at that game you were looking forward to getting for 8 months. When I play them now I don't know how I did it? I don't last 10 seconds without getting killed? With emulators and such you can just scroll through the games give it a try and and if it's hard try another. I am spoiled now and my young self would look at me in shame! Great topic..

I also think there are different kinds of hard as well. For instance, I’m going back and playing Chrono Trigger right now and the difficulty doesn’t come from blistering fast gameplay, but from choosing the right party, learning the battle system, figuring out weaknesses, discovering side quests, wearing the correct equipment, etc. I enjoy older RPGs because they made it feel like my choices in the game carried more weight.

2:36 gave me a good laugh

Considering how short they would be if they weren’t, I’d say no.

The sensation of having to earn progress can be rewarding. At least if the game isn't too difficult.

I generally like action adventure games over twitch-action, so I have not beaten many games considered very hard. I love retro-styled modern games, many of which have challenge, but great QoL features like saves and checkpoints.

I'm so diggin' the end theme to RB's videos!!! 🤣🤣

videogames can be really fun and fulfilling if used as a skill building hobby. My favorite genres are action games and fighting games for this reason. Breaking down something complex and turning parts of it into muscle memory so I can execute it quickly and easily feels really good. The process is not always fun though so I don't only play video games this way. But I really appreciate that there are games that give me the option to do this.

Something that pisses me off is people disregarding a retro game because it’s too easy, and one of the examples you gave, Castlevania IV, really resonated within me. That game was hard enough when I first beat it, I mean nowadays I’ve beaten Castlevania 1 and Dracula X but Castlevania IV was still pretty challenging in some parts, the game being slightly easier actually helps for the atmosphere it’s trying to build

When I first found out about kazio mario, I had to prove that I could beat it. I donwloaded it and grinded it out and either got real far or beat it with save states, cant remember. As time went on though, I realized that with that kind of hard, sure you can probably grind and beat, but is that really fun at that point. Now I'd just like a good challenge and if it gets to grindy hard I tend to lose interest unless I'm really in the mood for something extremely hard.

I think the beautiful thing about games is there's something for everyone. Not every game has to cater to you specifically, you'll always find a game that's as easy or as hard as you specifically want. You're not entitled to an easy mode.

Aladdin on the Sega Master System will take you maybe two hours, if that? Still quite a cool game, but the fun is short-lived. There were a fair few games that came out back in the day that were infamous for everyone beating them on the first go and feeling ripped off.

In my experience, there are many different kinds of difficulty in games. Some I like and am happy to spend hours mastering, some are just infuriating and unfun. By the same token, some games are only fun to me when challenging whilst some are made better by the removal of it. I think it's the same for a lot of people, though which is which will depend entirely on the person. That said, we should all just enjoy games the way we want to so that we can each focus on the elements we individually enjoy.

Love the videos! I agree that it is very individual and it is all down to what you want to get out of the experience. In terms of fairness, retro games had some great cheats to change and nerf the games, especially with the physical cheat cartridges! As a Gameboy enthusiast, I loved my game genie and I still have my atomic purple xploder for the gameshark/action replay codes

Save states are also the best way to train your skills. Also, I play hard games, though usually wishing they were a hair easier.

I'm a save states guy and not ashamed about it. But I'm also an original hardware snob. Fortunately technology (!) caters to folks like me so I'm overall quite hunky dory with my retro games being hard as heck. I mean, yYou still gotta get through the hard spots, just with way, way less grinding. My time is very limited as is my attention span... squirrel!

Most of the "hard" retro games I have played are timing, rhythm, pattern type stuff. Use trial and error, learn the game. And then there are the ridiculous mechanics games. 1 game I really, really wanted to like frustrated me with its sillyness. I think it was called Deadly Towers. The only parts of that game I remember are the ones where I died more times than I like to admit. Never finished it.

A subscribe from Seoul! Good video mate!

Thanks for the awesome funny content :D great work man

I remember buying Jackal from Meijer as a kid,me and my cousin had a great time with it!

Retro games are as hard as they need to be, & we all LOVE THEM! Still struggling to finish Alex kidd in miracle world :( Its funny I finished Ghouls n Ghosts on my MD...

Quick Little Story for Ya, there is no Quick Little Story for Ya in this video! :( Anyway, I like harder retro games as an adult as I do not have the time to put in 80 plus hours into a video game. I usually play 20 to 30 minutes top before someone needs me to do something around the house. In that amount of time I usually can play a game through all my lives at least once. So I really enjoy retro games more because of that reason!

My buddy was trying to explain to me why he likes playing games on easy. He told me that he enjoys playing games on easy difficulty and because he can breeze through the game and do it before he has to go to work, do chores, etc. I told him that by playing "kindergarten mode" (easy mode) he's not truly experiencing the full game itself, that and if there is no true challenge, what's the point of playing the game? Yeah you can still have fun, though in my opinion not only is it fun, but if you overcome something challenging it feels great to reap the rewards (exp, extra ammo, extra life, in game achievement, etc.)

The old 8 bit and 16 bit games were relatively short compared to modern games. SO the companies made them tough, making gamers have to replay them over and over to see the ending. The original FF on NES for example you could beat in about 10 hours, where FF 15 was probably about 50 hours of gameplay, even more if you grind and do sidequests. And that's an RPG, most action games back then, you could beat within an hour if you were a pro at the game. Basically, the companies were trying to make you get your money's worth , making those old games so hard.

It took me 3 solid months to finish ghouls and ghosts on the mega drive. I was so satisfied when I finished it but man it was hard. Still I've got great memories. Keep on keeping on oh brother of the microchip and the sprite!

I remember playing the original Sonic games on the Mega Drive back in the 90s, and thinking they were quite easy (apart from the special stages). However, being a man of 50, my reflexes and eyesight are on the wane, and I can barely get past level 2 of any of these games nowadays!

It was just the way it was back then and modern games don't need to be impossible to beat. They should be fun and not frusterating. I'm stuck on The Messenger for no reason, just because it has to be hard because in the 80s games were hard. Developers need to move past that and understand that you should be able to beat the game and have quality of life improvements to do so, like saves and difficulty levels and greater life bars.

Love this video, and your sense of humor

I'm too distracted by you not getting the coins in stage 1-4 of Super Mario 3 to get the white Toad House with the P-Wing to answer anything.

I can't get past the power button..... I have tried for years!

Great video as always, but Retro Bird.... I have to ask. What started the whole Banana thing? I enjoy it, it's funny. I was just curious about the origins of it.

A lot of the difficult retro games are not hard in the way that you need to have good reflexes or are smart in your approach. Most hard games are easy games that want you to die a lot on things you can never react to or see coming. They want you to memorise when you have to make a small or big jump over a pit not be hit by an offscreen enemy or enemy projectile. This is just lazy design to prolonge the time it takes to beat a game rather than actual challenge you.

I love my retro games. I like the Challenge. However I really dislike when programmers resort to cheating in games instead of making clever/good designs. Like when the rules of a game apply to you but not your enemy. "oh Mr. bad guy can use this weapon and has infinite ammo, but oh no you only have 3 shots with it when you get the weapon." The rules of a game should be applied evenly and fairly to the player and the rest of the population of the game, or at least give a proper explanation as to why.

I love your content! Thanks again, man!

dude i love your sense of humor!

I like my games hard, coz there is always room for improvement in my gameplay. It’s basically a contest against myself: can I 1CC a certain game? Ok, now do it with a single life. Once that works, try it without dropping a single bomb, or do it with the worst weapon, and so on… It doesn’t always work off course, some games are just too hard to complete with a bunch of self-imposed set of rules (and I’m getting old 🤣), but therein lies the challenge for me. Atm I’m playing the Japanese version of Fire Shark on the Mega Drive, because that version is already harder than its Western counterpart. I can easily 1CC it, but I want to do a 1 life run, so as a rule I have to play the game at least once a day, before I thouch anything else…this is how you get better, it’s simple math really.

My experience with hard games has changed a lot. As a kid, I had very little skill but all the time and energy in the world. As an adult, I'm more skilled, but much less time to get better at a game and learn levels. There is room for both easy AND difficult games in my life, depending on my mood and energy. So I really don't think any game deserves to be bashed for being too hard or too easy. They serve a purpose to cater to a different mood. Restricting yourself to one kind of difficulty really limits the amount of great games you can experience, imo.

Bird, that NES console still wielding a knife? Stay safe 🙏

I like that light lighting on the controller while playing thats unique

Retrobird man, what CRT are you using in these videos? I'm always jealous of those glorious scanlines we always see in your releases.

I hate when I play a 90's game that was made artificially difficult just so it could fight back Blockbuster rentals. It sucks cause Blockbuster is dead now, but the game is still stuck being cheap. This happened so much, especially during USA localization (see Contra: Hard Corps or SoR3) I legit think there should be a project that mods old games to make them still challenging, but not cheaply so. (i know that's subjective, but I legit think we can get ballpark it)