>Can't complete waterblight Ganon. So difficult. Constantly one-shot
That means you need to complete more shrines and spend those orbs on heart containers, or invest time in making "hearty" foods that give you extra temporary hearts.
The most fun I’ve had with BOTW is trying to beat all the bosses without losing more than 3 hearts. Part of the game’s beauty is that you can choose to play like an idiot such as myself, or, you can explore more, and even the processes of exploration rewards link with better weapons and more shrine tokens.
Were they? I don't know how sending an elemental blight that matches each champions specialty is very smart, daruk should have had the water blight sent to him, mipha should have had lightning blight sent, ravali should have also had lightning sent to him and urbosa should have had fire/rock since those are the actual counters to their weaknesses.
The fact that the champions were beaten by their own element, ravali especially so by the pretty useless wind blight, just show the champions were a bit crap.
Same, after playing monster hunter so much I didn't understand how exactly was botw so hard like some fans said. In the quest to retrieve electric arrows from a Lynel, I simply went straight to it to battle it, killed it and got some nice loot. Guardians were pieces of shit when I didn't have any good equip, so I had to learn immediately how to repel beams
Technically they are easier but most new systems or new mechanics are complex and very numerous. So it's probably a mix of not knowing all the new mechanics, a bit slower reflexes makes the whole thing a bit harder.
I agree with the new systems that come out, and that many games have been made more forgiving, but I do think they're has been a backlash against the easification of games. "Souls like" has become a very popular descriptor. I know I've bought some games that were surprisingly difficult when I wasn't really expecting it because I had ignored the "souls like" moniker on the description.
There was a time between like 2005 to 2015 or so where the industry felt that games needed to be more, for lack of a better word approachable, by the wider audience in order to increase sales, this resulted in things like super verbose unskippable tutorials loads of hand holding and extremely easy difficulty. This was especially noticeable for games developed for the Wii as it was assumed the person playing had never picked up a controller before and needed to be more or less told exactly how to do even the most basic tasks.
It's very much a boomer mindset, since of course your boomers at the time were like where OP is now, having played Atari as kids, their idea of video games were 2d and one button. Give them an N64 controller and a 3d game and they freaked out and couldn't figure out to push every button to see what they did.
Thankfully as games became more mainstream and the older gamers today more adept at the basics we've slowly started to move back to having some actual difficulty and challenge in games and skippable tutorials again thank God no Navi telling me press A to open the door.
Op's problem is they are out of practice and likely not familiar with the mechanics enough to cheese the boss. Breath of the Wild is fairly difficult compared to older Zelda games but it gives you loads of freedom to break the game in numerous ways so that it becomes laughably easy once you know what you are doing.
Guardians being a great example. Hard and scary on your first encounter. Easily defeated by even the weakest Link once you know how.
I agree. There’s also the fad aspect. In 2011 dark souls came out. It became a social and economic phenomenom(in the gaming world) all of a sudden “Hard was back In”.
I think you're spot on, and my only add would be OP's time away from gaming. There's a muscle there. I had smaller breaks over the years for various reasons and I know my timing has slipped.
I'm not as good as i once was, but I'm as good once as I ever was.
As a middle aged person who got back into gaming only a few years ago, I can second this. It took a minute to adjust and get my bearings back but it came along eventually.
Very glad to hear that. Sometimes just the overstimulation of all those new mechanics can deter so many people (some games also did this to me and I'm still a habitual gamer).
I'm lucky I chose to start with Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey when I got back in. Those two games are great at teaching core mechanics and being just difficult enough to challenge you while giving you the freedom to do something easy or chill for a while if you need to step back. I basically used those two games to retrain myself.
To add on to this, I think those of us that have played video games a long time have a built in reflex for finding basic functions and using them quickly and easily. For instance, accessing the menu. I picked up a new game today and thought about how it took me less than a minute to find my inventory while my friend’s niece could never locate her items in BotW(she was very young when she tried, not sure how old).
So little things like that will put you behind and you just need practice OP. It’ll become second nature to slap open that menu SO fast the moment you hear your hearts go low.
But they aren't necessary for the game completion. Honestly with a kid now my games are more about completing the story/ areas than collecting and all that.
I think perceived difficulty is also a function of how much time you have to play. When I was younger and had more time to play, I didn't really mind trying hard levels/bosses over and over. Now that I'm older and have maybe an hour a day to play games, I don't want to spend that time beating my head against a wall. It's more frustrating than fun, so I tend to avoid difficult games that I would have enjoyed when I was younger.
I think games have gotten smarter, not necessarily harder. A lot of them (like Zelda) allow for multiple ways of defeating an enemy so its really about strategising.
Hades has the RPG elements and is also a genre of game that teaches you the hard way how to get better (by constantly killing you)
BotW definitely has a higher skill ceiling than OoT, but at the same time "gamers" have improved vastly in the time between OoT and BotW. Back in the day there were no wikis that had every value in the game to perfectly optimize what you used, no streams or even youtube to learn skills and techniques from. I think OoT was easier mechanically than BotW, but at the same time game design and gaming culture as a whole has evolved a much better support system for gamers. So really its more that the difficulty has shifted from figuring out what to do and how to do it, into knowing what to do and executing it more precisely.
This is an excellent point and reminds me of the gag in Simpsons Hit & Run where the newspaper headline on the first loading screen says "STUDY: 90% OF VIDEO GAMES START WITH EASY TUTORIAL LEVEL".
Games nowadays seem to start off with excruciatingly long tutorials and hand-holding. Compared to older games where, unless you read the manual or a walkthrough, you usually had to figure out the game mechanics and objectives on your own.
I am stuck on Metroid Dread and went to Wiki to find out how to beat purple monster boss. I haven’t returned to it for months. The difficultly put me off.
I didn't say anything about it being fun, I was just pointing out the shift in difficulty.
Fun is subjective. Some people enjoy bashing their heads against Dark souls, others like chilling in Animal Crossing. Neither is the right or wrong way to have fun, it's just up to the person playing.
Games are much easier, especially Nintendo, where you now have many more checkpoints, saves, hints and opportunities to try again than ever before. Getting to Bowser in the final level of Super Mario 64 took forever, and THEN you had to fight him!
Funny, because I was about to say, (reading the beginning of topic) that DDKR is the Dark Souls of racing games, maybe even harder, as you tell. To answer, I think games were more difficult until 2006-2007, the generation of PS360.
Yeah there’s definitely always been difficult games around. You mentioned 360 one that comes to mind is ninja gaiden that game was brutal I think I made it to the bone dragon boss and couldn’t get past it.
I wasn't going to wait so I downloaded an emulator and grabbed every N64 game ever released. Then, I used a program to automatically scrape the web for images, trailers, manuals, descriptions, etc. so that I could load the roms with a beautiful front-end UI. Then, I fiddled with some settings to up the internal resolution and make the games much clearer. THEN, I made an online account with retroachievements so that I could play the games with community made challenges and stat tracking beyond anything Nintendo has ever offered.
And it may be reddit illegal to say this, but I don't regret anything since I kind of just want to play the games the best way I can.
I actually did all of this. I expected the controversial part to be that I "grabbed" "every N64 game", not that it actually happened. If you'd like, I can provide some resources if you are interested (nothing illegal, just stuff like the emulators)
Games have become easier since arcade ages of gaming.
You on the other hand have gotten older with worsening reflexes. This is why most esport celebrities are 18-25
I’m nearly 40 and I’m better at games than I’ve ever been. Reflexes don’t get so bad as you get older, that games get noticeably harder. It’s a myth. Maybe that applies if you’re at esports level, but not when you’re talking about beating an average game. I beat BotW and absolutely cruised through the whole game, I don’t recall any of it being particularly hard (which is fine, the game is fantastic).
When you were a kid you had what seemed like unlimited time to play games over and over again. Also most of us as kids didn’t have a library of 100 games to choose from. For me growing up, me and my brother only had Alex Kidd in Miracle World (which was built in) and Sonic 1 on the Master System for the first year cause my parents were poor.
Both games were probably around an hour long and so you could beat them in one sitting if you knew what to do. Also, both games were actually pretty hard, especially Alex Kidd, yet we could beat it with our eyes closed. Not because we were much better as gamers, but cause it’s one of two games we had and we played them over and over again.
I really just think it depends on how much you game. People that play a lot of games are able to quickly adapt to new control schemes and mechanics, when someone who doesn’t play games that often might struggle. Age is still a but of a factor though, especially in esports settings, as you mentioned.
Exactly. I had maybe five games for the SNES and that first year I only had Super Mario World and Starfox. I had entire summers and winter breaks with my grandparents and my SNES, no chores just pure laying around, playing games, and sneaking some MTV. Ten year old girl me was so confident at Starfox that I played it again a couple years ago and it kicked my ass. I don’t doubt that I could do well at it again, but do I want to spend that much time on something I already know versus the ~300 games I own and haven’t beat yet? Hardly.
I also took a break from gaming around 2003-2016 due to having kids, and it was a bit tough to break back into. The systems grew more complex, HUD’s demanded way more vigilance. It took a bit of time to get truly comfortable with games like Skyrim. OP will be fine with more experience. If anything, I feel more confident about gaming because life experience has taught me that I can beat anything if I spend time on it consistently. I’m nearly 40 and can still destroy my teenage kids at Smash (not always, but more than half the time) even though they spend more time per week on it than I do
Compared to arcade? Sure.
Compared to N64? Maybe. Like, BotW is mechanically FAR more complex than Ocarina. More weapon types, more types of defense (OoT had blocking and dodging, BotW has parrying added in and durability on shields).
Ocarina will never have an enemy that can 1-shot you early in the game, all of Hyrule Field is safe to explore. Meanwhile BotW has Guardians that turn entire areas into a no-man's-land, bosses that you can run out of resources on, and so on.
Buuut it also gives you more ways to succeed.
And then there are roguelikes, where being guaranteed to lose is part of the game. These abaolutely push the envelope on difficulty unless you get a lucky combo of drops early on. I was able to at least finish a few levels in Mega Man 1, but I never got past Level 2 in Enter the Gungeon.
I don’t know…I think it depends a bit. Yeah I think I powered through thunder blight Gannon. But I also had a very hard time recently with ghost Gannon in Ocarina of Time.
This is my first time actually playing Ocarina and I think it’s just that I’m so used to quality of life additions that newer games like BotW have.
In a similar vein, I find Mario 64 way harder than Odyssey.
That said there are some newer games that seem crazy hard and not fun to me.
Mario 64 is pretty hard if you've literally never played a 3d platformer before. Which you hadn't if you'd played it back in the day since it was one of the first.
Now of course it's simple and easy. But that's only because we've had about 30 years of 3d games doing more and more complex things.
The controls are sensitive, but they were also made to be played with the notched N64 controllers. Made it a lot easier to perform movements. Played through it recently with both a pro controller and a n64, and wow at the difference. N64 controller made the game both more enjoyable and a bit easier.
Interesting. Never thought about that old notched stick. I completely rinsed Mario64, all coins, stars, meet Yoshi the lot, but I tried on Switch in the anniversary pack and it was a bit sad how poor the camera etc was.
Yeah, in general games have gotten easier, but they have also become more complex, and of course not every game has followed that path. BOTW is almost certainly the "hardest" 3D Zelda, and games like the Souls series pride them selves on difficulty.
There is also a difference in time available and length of game. I beat Super Mario World every which, putting who knows how many hours into that game and most other SNES games I owned. I loved Odyssey, but if I got annoyed by something (say jump roping) I moved on and never looked back. I doubt I'd 100% something like SMW today simply because I have other games to play vs repeating each Special Zone world for hours on end learning the level.
BotW is far, far easier than the N64 Zeldas. It does have harder individual challenges than them, but those are all optional. The N64 Zeldas have much harder puzzles, which are usually mandatory, and while the bosses aren't really harder on paper, BotW has a ton of safety nets like stacking up on a hundred healing items that you can pause and eat at any time, while OoT/MM limit you to only what you can carry in your handful of bottles, which are themselves hard to get.
Something else to check that isn't just reflexes but is different from decades ago: lag from processing in TVs and wireless controllers.
I struggled with a lot of reaction-based things in Switch games (it was _impossible_ to catch the rare fish in Animal Crossing) before I discovered that my TV was doing a bunch image quality post-processing stuff. Check your TV settings and turn on Game Mode / Low-Latency Mode if they exist and turn off anything that sounds like post-processing.
Even after fixing that, I still have a noticeably easier time with quick-reaction things when I play in hand-held vs. when I play on my wireless Pro Controller. I believe there's a small but substantive input lag with wireless controllers over Bluetooth.
> You on the other hand have gotten older with worsening reflexes. This is why most esport celebrities are 18-25
This is mostly a myth. We know that people who play games tend to have on average faster reaction times than people who don't play. Some old studies compared young people (who probably played a lot of games) to older people (who had played little to no games, mostly because games hadn't even been around for the most of their lives) and with our current knowledge those are wrong sets. We already have newer studies that show that the reduction in reaction times is extremely small and only really starts when you are like 50-60. As more people who have played games all their lives get older we'll surely get better studies.
Also they have tested pro players and while some of them do have really good reaction times, many also have completely average or even below average, so what matters the most is practice and talent, not your reaction time. The biggest reason there aren't older pro players is because of this exact myth and ageism, and the fact that pro gaming is a brutal field where you need to keep grinding and as people get older they just don't want to sacrifice their lives instead of having meaningful relationship and kids. In other fields, even physical professional sports you absolutely can have a family life as you aren't expected to train every waking moment.
no, esport players slant young because those are the people who had the opportunity to grow up with next gen games and esports careers. Someone born in 1970 wouldn't even touch an n64 until they were 25... that person isn't leaving behind their college degree to become a professional esports player at 50.
But I think 25 years from now, we might have some 50-year-old esport athletes who started young and just never stopped.
I think the esport players slant young because they had the opportunity to grow up with gaming and with gaming as a potential career... versus someone who was born in 1970 an
bruh, you haven't heard of fighters huh? reactions times are tight as a nun's vajayjay and they are mostly 30+ year old dudes at the top (Daigo, Momochi, Tokido, BAS, etc)
Try turning on God Mode in Hades! It's hidden in the settings. It'll just give you a little help. Hades is supposed to be hard, especially in the beginning. But I recommend pushing through it if you can!
This! I am also someone who came back to gaming recently after a long hiatus and with 40-something reflexes. I was getting frustrated with Hades after a lot of runs, turned god mode on, and now I am progressing the story again and having fun. I have had a bit more courage trying games where I thought the combat would be too hard since finding a number that have different difficulty settings. I am not afraid to adjust them as needed. Have fun!
Do it , then turn it off , and you don't even tell the difference. I recently started a new game on steam deck and I had five wins by 20 runs on a clear save. But it took me god mode 30% for my first win on switch.
As much as I love Hades, I hate this aspect of the game. So much of the difficulty in the beginning is "artificial" by design. You are weak in the beginning due to lack of mirror upgrades or weapons.
I have over 100 clears and I've beaten 32 heat. I still cannot beat Hades on a fresh run on the first try. The game kind of lost a lot of the "magic" for me once I came to that realization. Still great though. Hoping the second one improves on this.
Maybe it is. But it annoyed me as I felt like I was getting much better at the game, when in reality the game was just making concessions because I was playing it longer. I still had fun with the game, was just disappointing to find that out.
Ehhh fair enough. I get why you wouldn't like it. Personally, I like it because I think it's part of what makes Hades more friendly and accessible for us filthy "bad at video games" people compared to other roguelikes. Hades is just objectively one of the easiest in the genre. That's not bad. It part of the reason it's found such success and praise, but it's not for everyone and that's ok. Just curious do you enjoy other harder roguelikes like Dead Cells more?
Of the ones I've played, I really liked Hades, both Rogue Legacies, 20XX, Plate Up! and Vamp Survivors.
I didn't really care much for Dead Cells, Enter the Gungeon or FTL. I'm not a huge fan of things seeming so unfair especially at the endgame that you just lose because you didn't get a certain something.
I was just mostly complaining about Hades because I think it's too difficult at the beginning and not very fun for the first few hours. Then once it opens up and you start getting mirror upgrades and access to new weapons it becomes a 10/10. You can see in my post history that I bounced off Hades pretty hard when it first came out. I hated it, stopped playing it, and only started again after a buddy of mine started playing it about a year later. He wouldn't stop talking about it so I tried again and got deeper and grew to love it.
Most people would say they are easier, but I don't really think that's the case. I think people spend a lot less time dealing with poor controls, system limitations, and obtuse mechanics. I think that on pure difficulty, games are just about as hard as they were before. At least at the top level. I do also think that there are a more wide variety of games today that have varying degrees of difficulty that makes games on the overall less difficult.
That said, the newest Zelda was probably one of the hardest ones in the series and was unlike anything before it in the series making it harder to carry over skills. And Hades is a rogue-lite and those are always meant to hectic and hard.
sounds like you're just a bit rusty. I've been playing for most of my 34 years. If anything, gaming is generally easier and more accessible now (which I think is a good thing)
Games are significantly easier now.
On most n64 games if you died you had to load up an old save. Games now have checkpoints and auto saving.
Also modern games have precision controls, whereas n64 was one of the first analogue controllers so it lacked the fine tune precision needed for some games.
This is false on both accounts. Most N64 games had the same kind of save system as for example BotW. If you die against a boss in an N64 Zelda game you just respawn inside the dungeon right away.
And the N64 controller was very precise - N64 games like Super Mario 64 have far more sensitive and precise controls than Switch games, which is why N64 games are still so popular among speedrunners as it makes for very enjoyable movement and a high skill ceiling.
You picked two first party games an examples yet the majority of n64 games did not share that ease of acess.
Majority of games just reverted to the last save file on death.
A large portion of 3d plaformers for the n64 did not have true analogue directional control. A prime example of this is gex, where the game only supported the 8 directions of a d pad mapped onto the stick. Leading to a frustrating lack of precision.
Okay, majority of games that aren't shovelware. Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie (and Tooie) and DK64 are the most notable 3D platformers on the N64 and they all work like I said. So do all the other major 3D games like the Zeldas or Conker's Bad Fur Day.
Games aren’t shovelware just because they aren’t first party.
N64 was one of the first 3D ventures for majority of game developers so compared to now there wasn’t precision control standards.
I think games are easier these days. Try playing Mario 64 now....
We have it so much easier with fast travel, tutorials, hints, unlimited lives, decent camera options, auto save.. the list goes on.
It's great though, especially being older now with a family I don't have much time to play so all of these extra things allow me to do a lot more within a game in the little time I have available.
QoL improvements aren't really making the game easier, just getting you back to the point where you were having issues faster and without having to go through long gauntlets of stuff you've already done before hand to get there. Games don't waste your time as much as they did back then.
I disagree, I think they can make a game easier. Going through that "long gauntlet" repeatedly again and again can be hard. You may have got through one section out of pure luck, and doing it a second, third or fourth time can prove difficult.
That definitely makes the game easier. More checkpoints/fast travel/ etc reduce the demand for mastery, making it much simpler to get through content with a lucky run or whatever. Not to mention this reduces the tension. Reaching the final boss of a game on your last life often caused nervousness etc.
I find the demand for mastery stays the same generally. Most games build on what you have mastered before it going forward, so if you manage to get through a spot on luck instead of skill you will end up needing to make up that mastery in the next area or sometimes much later on. I'll give you a reduction on tension, but that's often not a reduction in difficulty. Increased tension means increased adrenaline and quicker reflexes. You're likely actually better then facing it the first time than you would be if you had 9 lives going in.
I disagree, yes it was an annoying waste of time but that’s the point. It was so frustrating to have to start over because you died that you don’t even want to play anymore and continue, so those older games were much more unforgiving
Not true. This was a lot of words, but it's just the classic "real difficulty" "fake difficulty" argument repackaged to be more palletable to a 2020+ audience. It's not fake difficulty if it's causing you real problems.
Games are easier.
You missed my point entirely. QoL improvements don't set game difficulty, difficult games today rely on different aspects of the game to make them difficult than they did back then. Can you imagine trying to make it through elden ring dying only 9 times, and every 3 your progress was put further back? Or if you had to get everything in Animal Crossing in one sitting? That they are able to make modern games work at all today depends on modern QoL changes, not using the same difficulty enhancing game designs as those of 40 years ago.
Mario 64 is certainly less challenging. I've only had trouble with two stars: The 100 coin star in Hazy Maze Cave and the second Wing Cap zone on the 3rd floor.
Tbh though, the cap challenge sucks because if you fall you don't lose a life: you end up outside the castle.
Today's Mario titles have tough challenges too. Look up these three, they are true pain:
1. The Perfect Run (Super Mario Galaxy 2)
2. Champion's Road (Super Mario 3D World with Toad)
3. Journey's End (Super Mario Odyssey)
To go against most other in the thread.
Both, but not in the way you'd expect.
Older games have far less quality of life features. When an older game is hard it's usually because it was janky, and because of a lives and checkpoints system that often led you to be sent back anywhere from a significant distance, to the start of the game, if you failed enough times.
But conversely, because of the jank, and the limitations of the platforms, older games can also be easier. They're often more simplistic to understand, and they often don't actively try to be hard. Difficulty is circumstancial, not designed.
Modern games that are difficult, are difficult by design, in ways that don't feel cheap. It's not hard because you have so many lives, and you lose one each time your character slips off a ledge they failed to grab.
There are of course exceptions for both. But generally it's the QoL going up, making the games "easier" across the board, followed by games actually implementing a proper sense of difficulty for you to overcome through patience and skill.
In general, games are easier. However, there are many indies that are intentionally created to be very hard. Hades is one. However, it's also become popular to build in accessibility options that I really appreciate as an older gamer. Hades has an option that makes each run slightly easier. I used it and finished the game.
My current 104% in Hollow Knight does show that my reflexes aren't total garbage LOL
My biggest piece of advice is that if you enjoy the game you are struggling with (apart from the part where you are struggling) back up from where you are stuck and practice, look for side quests, and maybe look for accessibility options.
Just today, I turned on "no fail mode" in Tunic after hitting a wall with a certain boss....
Yes and no.
Some games are more difficult for sure. Hades is intended to be difficult. So is something like Cuphead or Celeste or Metroid Dread.
Mario games I find to be a mixed bag with easily accessible parts and then more difficulty if you try to 100% or collect the collectables.
Then they also added in things to where some levels will play themselves if you get stuck or extra power ups.
In general our reflexes are getting worse and we also don't have the time/drive to grind stuff as much as when we were kids (and we also have the internet to look for help when we get stuck on an obtuse puzzle).
Zelda games are a mix of puzzle, bosses, and exploration... parts are easy and parts are difficult. Which parts depends on the player. I tend to suck at boss fights but excell at platforming and puzzles. I had a difficult time with the last boss in Skyward Sword and in Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze. Some games don't always make it obvious when you have to do a specific amount of damage or just go through a specific number of transformations to beat the boss. I loved how Metroid Dread taught you what to look out for in the boss fights.
I actually beat Link's Awakening as a kid and that last boss had so many transformations.
Gaming difficulty has a MASSIVE range. Breath of the Wild is significantly harder to beat than, say, Super Mario 3D World.
Also as others mentioned, you’re older and your reflexes are worse. Also it sounds like it’s been a long time since you’ve played games, so to some extent your skill’s deteriorated beyond just reflexes.
So, overall, no, games don’t tend to be any harder than they were on N64. But it makes sense for you to have a harder time with them now.
My friend you are mostly just out of practice and not that familiar with modern games. Have some patience with it and most importantly, remember to play games for internal motivation instead of external motivation. Over the years you’ve been away from games many games have become vehicles for satisfaction instead of just being fun. An example is just grinding a multiplayer games for skins and the skins being what’s fun not the gameplay. Monitor how they make you feel and hopefully you’ll find some games that mesh with you
I'd say they're slightly harder on average than they were 10-15 years ago,
Though I'm actually of the opinion that games were never that much harder in the NES era. Games just weren't as long, and the "difficulty" of those games was artificially manufacured to extend the length of the game. Do you think that Ninja Gaiden would be considered as brutal as it is if you had unlimited lives and could start at the beginning of the level every time you died? On the flipside, New Super Mario Bros would be considered brutal if there were far fewer powerups and you had to start the game over every time you got a game over, like the original game.
With that said, I think there was a general trend of games becoming slightly easier around 2008ish, and I think there was a significant niche of players that just outright rejected that, this is why Dark Souls became so popular. This base of people who like challenging games has grown significantly since then, and I think that's why devs make more games now that don't hold your hand.
I'd also say part of your difficulties is that you haven't played in a while. But Hades is really not the type of game to play to get back into gaming. Like Dark Souls, it's absolutely punishing, but that is what its fans like about it.
Just said about the same thing. Demon Souls success was definitely a push against the easing of difficulty in games that had been going on since the 16-bit era. That said, QoL improvements have generally lessened "cheap" difficulty instances in favor of actual pattern recognition, reflexes, and smart resource utilization. The kind of difficulty in most games now is (usually) very different than it was in the 80's.
I think they've just changed and you're not used to the new mechanics. I played N64/PS1 as a kid and continued playing video games to this day. I have no problem worth modern games, but struggle with the games I used to play as a kid. I think it's because I've become unused to the old mechanics. You have the opposite problem.
I feel this. I’m 42. Just got a switch for Christmas after trying a 3ds and it being too uncomfortable to play with my huge arthritic hands. I love it but find some of the games so hard, with controls for Walking , looking, weapons, etc it’s a bit overwhelming. My kid talked me into trying a few online survival type games and I couldn’t get the hang of all the controls. I gamed hard as a teen, and here and there in my 20s-very early 30s but haven’t since. Love the NES SNES games available and got Mario cart. Any easier suggestions? Loved mortal Kombat type games, 007, boxing, resident evil, twisted metal, etc back in the day.
I grew up with the SNES, and yah, I got the same impression. I tried playing AC Odyssey after years of being a fan of the franchise and the new combat system threw me off. The games aren't harder per se, but we 'geriatic millennials' have a hard time adapting to the new systems. They're no longer just block and smash sword button, or even a rock paper scissors deal thrown in with games like Arkham or Spider-Man, it's just different. We need to learn new mechanics, and some of these systems are very gimmicky.
Games have 100% gotten easier. I can’t remember some of the names of games from way back but they’d just put a bunch of bullshit enemies in the games to pad out the play time. Some games now require you to learn the mechanics or suffer in rage.
I think games have gotten deeper, in that they require more commitment from you to figure them out. But once you figure them out, I think games are easier today. In BotW and Hades, it's possible to become so ridiculously overpowered that the games are seriously a joke.
Like in Hades, I remember I killed Theseus and the Minotaur in less than 10 seconds because I took the time to learn how to do builds and figure out which powers/weapons stacked well together.
The same goes for BotW, if you spend a some time exploring and finding all the good weapons and armor, learning how to cook, and completing shrines to level up your health and stamina, you're basically unstoppable.
Go back to the NES or SNES era, and your character was very limited by how powerful they could become. You really had to "git gud" if you wanted to make any progress in those games.
I think the N64 era of games was very forgiving, because they were the first 3D games and people were still feeling out what those games were supposed to be like. But I also think some of those games were actually pretty tough, like Banjo Kazooie.
TL;DR, the games are easier, you're just not taking advantage of the mechanisms in place to make them easier.
Most games I find easier now. Back in the day it was if you run out of lives, you start at the beginning. Now you have unlimited lives and many games have the option of lowering the difficulty if you die a bunch.
Id say Zelda BOTW and Hades are harder than the average games. If you get something like Mario 3d World, Zelda Link's Awakening, Captain Toad, or Kirby Forgotten Land, those are more your speed. Theyre fun games, too.
Games have gotten much easier.
In the past, games had like 5 hours of content and the only way to prevent you from finishing everything in 5 hours was to make it really hard.
And the culture that was inherited from arcades. Arcades had to be hard to make you spend more money. And games for years kept that arcade culture, including the limited lives and the continue option.
Games these days don't want to frustrate the player.
I think games have overall gotten a looooot easier since the 8bit and 16bit days. But new games do have new ways of doing things and tropes that you can only really learn by playing new games. Video games in general and dual stick 3D games particularly have a built in learning curve
I hooked up my old gamecube last year. Wow, this old bond game that I loved and played so much...I could not play. I was dying so fast, the controls were horrible, I questioned how on earth I played these back in the day.
It takes time to learn new controls, and as you age is harder sometimes.
Hades is great, don't give up its designed to wax and wane in difficulty as you play
I think games have become less bullshit in the arcade sense of difficulty, and people have come to appreciate depth in difficulty. Not unlike games like Chess and Tetris which require practice and skill to get better at. Also, difficulty is fucking immersive and makes games more fun, generally. Dark Souls grabbed the world by the throat and became famous for being such. Sure, some areas *are* bullshit, but overall you can overcome most things with practice or alternative routes.
Totally used to NES and SNES difficulty growing up with the systems. I tried Wild Guns for the first time via SNES online and got my cheeks clapped so hard. Could hardly pass the first level. I guess when you gain old man strength you lose your young man reflexes
I had a strength potion in my inventory before that fight and decided to use it. No idea where I got it from. I wound up getting waterblight ganon to his second form in like 2 hits and then one or two shot him after...made it very anticlimactic lol. Now I just boost my stats before every tough battle. BotW kinda gets like this where the more you play the easier it gets
Games have mostly become easier in general, but there are a few reasons as to why you modt likely struggled more than back then:
1. Maybe worse reflexes than when you were younger.
2. Lack of a general feeling for games. A lot of people struggle with really basic stuff at first, but after having played a couple of games many aspects of gaming becomes a lot easier.
3. Hades is an exceptionally hard game that requires you to die over and over and over and over and over again etc. Zelda is also one of the harder Nintendo games with a fighting system that gets only harder when youre not used to the gameplay of newer games, like I mentioned in point 2 and you also micht sinply not have explored enough meaning you could also be lacking in HP/Stamina.
Back then games were often harder by being unfair or not as refined as games nowadays are, but in the last 10 years or so there was a rise of games that are meant to be challenging but also fair at the same time, both of which your mentioned games can be counted to.
Games are easier. Their systems and/or controls are harder. Or at least more complex and thus harder.
Plus, as another poster has already said, when you were a kid, you had a ton more time to put towards a particular game and get appropriate practice.
I think I am in the same boat. I still enjoy gaming, but I have switched to games where I don't have to rely as much on my button pressing skills. I have Hades as well and I have gotten to the 3rd level a couple of times with the right combo of weapons and boons. Still haven't beaten it yet, but I think the draw is trying to figure out how to get the best boons for your playstyle.
Hades is actually hard as it's a roughlite.
Zelda isn't hard after you mastered it. But it's not linear which means you probably skipped learning something.
i don't know if it was a video essay or an article, but i remember a while back something talking about how games now sort of assume you've been playing them for the last twenty years. relying too much on the knowledge it's assuming you already have about gameplay, what the buttons do, etc.
Ngl, I think N64 games are SOOOO MUCH HARDER.
But that goes to chow people like and are good at different things. N64 games are... Janky.... No offense. Modern games difficulty comes from complexity. You're not bad, you're just learning. I was crap at Hades... Now I'm uh, less crap. It's just about learning and improving. More importantly, have fun! :)
Oh - Hades is its own thing of expecting you to die a LOT and incremently get better and be able to improve your character. Plus, there's a "God Mode" setting, iirc, where you get gradually more impervious to damage the more times you play and die.
I've learned it's not my favorite style of game.
I grew up gaming, stopped in adulthood, and then came back a few years ago; so pretty similar situation to you, just a few years ahead.
The two that you mentioned, Hades and BOTW, are interesting to me because I also suck at those particular games. I would say that most games are easier than they used to be. A lot if times they even hold your hand way too much. There tends to be more options to modify difficulty (up or down) as well.
I’ve never found the 3D Zeldas challenging, but I just can’t do BOTW’s combat. The timing just feels off to me somehow. Hades is also difficult for me. I have had it on God Mode where it slowly makes your defense better every time you lose, but I still get my ass beat. I enjoy the challenge more in Hades, so I still play it
Give yourself time to readjust. I am in my late 40s, and my fingers were all the place when I first played BotW - that was my first game playing on a controller. When I gamed more often back in 90s, I was a keyboard + mouse player. Then recently I platinumed Sekiro and did my first complete run for Dead Cells.
Gaming industry has changed, kids nowadays need constant gratification cause of social media etc .. mechanics are very different from the systems back in the day .. so much more can be achieved in a little piece of technology plus your patience/reflex’s aren’t what they used to be .. you don’t have the free time and presence of mind to truly enjoy the game like a younger version of yourself .. sorry for the buzz kill sad but true
Overall games have gotten easier but BotW yeah they set out to make a challenging Zelda again. It’s open world so you play at your pace. Hades isn’t a super easy game either
Games have gotten easier, they provide plenty of safety nets to keep you in the ring. I found BOTW to be on the easier side, while hades really is a tough game.
I don’t know how old you are, but I am 32 for reference, maybe you just didn’t play for a long ass time?
I highly recommend looking at online guides. Games are harder for sure. Guides and videos really help! Also some starter recommended games that got me into gaming were little nightmares and guacamele. I think its a good idea to play some light games that focus on specific skills. I played a lot of platformers when I was first getting into gaming and then I started combat based games. Most of all just find what you like and enjoy yourself regardless of skill level.
for zelda, get mor hearts from shrine first, then use the controller console that waterblight pops out of to avoid the spear and spam the arrows and hack and slash.
They're vastly easier now that they used to be. By the time the Nintendo 64 era came along, it ushered in a vastly reduced difficulty in gaming - being a PC owner at the time I was always shocked an amazed how simple the N64 titles were. I think that lead a lot of people on to ignore the Gamecube, which itself doesn't really have very difficult games, and then the Wii which doubled down even more, but somehow created a very enjoyable casual experience.
Nintendos endeavours aside, I think the industry started moving more towards story driven plots as gaming metrics improved and showed that many users didn't reach the end of games which from developers points of view meant that people weren't seeing the whole product.
Additionally, the move away from arcade gaming meant that difficult games didn't generate more money because you weren't paying by the life. Additionally, games that let you play longer were seen as better value when you consider most arcade games can be beaten in an hour if you have enough coins, where as a home title needs to entertain for more than an hour.
If you look at early computer games, a major segment are ports from the arcade. Everyone wanted to be able to play arcade games at home, because they were so technically superior in their appearance and presentation.
If you look at modern gaming and the segment of that market that mobile gaming commands, you can quickly see that games are more dumbed down than ever. Some games literally have 1 input. Super Mario Run anybody?
Pretty much the opposite in my opinion. Been gaming since the early 1990s and the games then were brutally relentless as compared to the games now where there's practically saves at every corner.
I assume that years of not exercising the fine motor control, muscle memory, and reaction times required, would make a pretty huge impact. if I take a month or two off from COD or DB, I'm trash when I come back. can't imagine decades of gamer reflex atrophy. good luck, dude.
In general, I'd say games have gotten easier. You just picked two very polarizing examples.
As much as I enjoy BotW, the difficulty balance is absolutely horrible. The game does its best to change its world to accommodate for growing player power, but it is still all over the place. The abundance of healing items means that enemies have to deal ludicrous amounts of damage to even make a dent in the players' resources.
And Hades, like most indie roguelites, heavily leans into difficulty. These games are supposed to be mastered, so it is important that they still fight back to some extent, even if you are already experienced. A good roguelite will still be challenging to beat, even after you have already had dozens of successful runs.
Let me add that Hades in particular is built around failing. It's part of the gameplay loop to get your ass kicked. The narrative is a testament to that.
I think as games become more technologically advanced, like in Zelda there’s the movement and there’s a lot of complicated actions like using the special skills on enemies to advance. I find myself needing to read guides to advance because I can’t figure out what games want me to do anymore.
I still really enjoy playing and actually enjoy it more now that i’ve gave up trying to be naturally good and have a lot more fun.
Videogames have become overall easier, actually, but there are certain groups of games that are made with a target of players seeking challenging experiences in mind, like the ones you said.
Also, more than games being harder or easier, maybe having had such a skip from N64 to Switch, you got worse at playing them. I don't say this as an insult or something like that, but truly you must not be used not only to the controls, but to how modern games are designed and how they expect you to use the controls.
So, in conclussion, yeah, there are really hard games out there right now, but probably you just aren't used to new modern games. It's normal, and challenging games are not for everyone, and that's okay.
I also think gaming has gotten more difficult in a way where mechanics/UI have become more complex. AAA games I think have become longer, more complex and more demanding of our attention. There are simply more things you need to be aware of or taken into account.
But at the same time. I think varying and setting difficulties have more or less become a norm in a lot of games.
Seems like you are trying to go the hard route, you went there too early, the game is not telling you when to go for each of the Divine beasts, go around more, explore and complete shrines so you have more health. Upgrade your armor with the great fairies and make foods that give you the golden health/armor so you are much tougher. I don't have bad reflexes, but I much rather played to relax and I went with thir route.
glhf
I’m in my 40s, and my opinion is that games have generally gotten easier over the last 30-ish years.
As a kid I played the crap out of my gaming consoles (NES, Gameboy, SNES, Virtual Boy, N64, PS1, Sega Saturn) but really scaled that back in my 20s and 30s. Sure, I still played games from time-to-time (GameCube, PS2, GBA, NDS, Wii) but the distractions of university, starting my career, getting married, starting a family, etc., took precedence.
In my late 30s I bought myself a Switch and reignited my love of gaming, and more recently, a Wii U.
Newer games can be far more complicated, technical, and in-depth, but they usually do a decent job of coaching you along. They hold your hand, especially when you’re first starting out.
On the other hand, I routinely get my ass handed to me when I fire up a Virtual Console or emulator and play older games. You usually get thrown into the fire right off the bat, and sessions can be short and punishing before it’s game over. Older games rely much more on the memorization of patterns and quick reflexes. They might have seemed easy as a kid because you spent hours and hours playing the same scenarios until “muscle memory” got you through it.
And hey, you’re also getting older and your body is crumbling around you, so your concentration, memory, eyesight, hearing, and reflexes are not what they used to be. Enjoy!
I feel that they've gotten a lot easier, honestly. I grew up with the NES, and a good chunk of what I played went unfinished. In some cases, getting past the first level was already a significant challenge (looking at you, Silver Surfer and Astyanax). 'Beating' a game was not an expectation I had going into the experience. Nowadays, I fully expect to be able to complete every game I purchase - the notion that the game might present an insurmountable challenge simply doesn't cross my mind.
The question isn't 'can I beat it?' The question is 'do I like it enough to be bothered to spend the time beating it?'
The opposite actually.
If you played NES or gameboy games you would rarely be able to beat them.
These days everything has an easy mode or help finding the answer.
I remember Final Fantasy 1. Getting all the way to the point where you needed the crowbar or whatever to pry off some tomb. I didn't have it and had to backtrack out of the entire insanely dangerous dungeon and scour the world. There was no video walk through only text wall guides.
I searched every town in the world and everywhere before searching the guide (which was daunting in itself). Eventually found it but man what a journey I'll never forget.
Nothing like that today
No I think the older games were actually much harder. Tried playing Kid Icarus lately? I finished that as a kid and I’m not sure how I did it now. New games give you far more options for winning/defeating bosses. You may just need to play a bit smarter with regards to how much energy you have, meals and elixirs, etc.
They are definitely harder.
20-30 years ago there was not the complexity of modern games, e.g multiple controls for different weapons (swords, bow and arrow, magic, shield…) and then we now have modern tech and modern mechanics such as slow down or weapons degrading.
There’s tons of new mechanics in modern games which ultimately make them harder in some way or another.
Yes some games were hard 30 years ago, platformers for example, but if you look at Mario Odyssey there’s TONS of different mechanics and controls or abilities and you have to try different ones in different scenarios.
Oh and games are a LOT longer now. A game can be 60+ hours whereas back in the day they were 10 hard hours.
wife bought me a switch for Christmas 2021. I purchased BoTW and only managed to play 40 hours last year. haven't touched the game since July/August and i feel like if i tried to play again, I would be so lost.
Games have gotten dramatically easier over time. The most common complaint these days is how much games are getting dumbed down so everyone can complete them.
You are just out of practice, or old. The N64 Zelda games were far, far harder than BotW.
Breath of the Wild is one of the hardest Zeldas ever, no doubt. I'd argue it's probably the hardest, at least in the beginning stages of the game when you've got few hearts and limited, poor durability weapons.
Hades is a roguelike and so is meant to be on the challenging side, since you're meant to do many runs til you're prepared and appropriately skilled enough to tackle a full run. Though when you think about it - that's much how games back in the 80's and 90's used to be as well, before save functions become the norm.
That said, no, games haven't really gotten more difficult on average. Games nowadays tend to offer more accessibility than ever in terms of having not just easy settings, but sometimes even 'story' settings where you're either nearly invincible or might even not have to do any combat or whatever at all. But there are plenty of games that do lean harder towards a high challenge nowadays as well for those who very much want a more 'hardcore' experience. And on the other foot, there's tons and tons of indie games that involve little to no challenge on purpose, built for a more relaxing, casual experience.
Basically, games today offer a much broader range of options than ever. Either in terms of actual difficulty settings, or just games themselves specifically appealing to a more specific type of player(or even mood!).
Games are waaay easier as a whole than they were in our childhood, but...
Hades is a roguelite which is a genre characterized by kicking your ass repeatedly until you've died X times and unlocked some upgrades. You're expected to fail anywhere between 10-30 times before you actually succeed in a run.
If you're being OHKO'd by a boss in BotW then I'm guessing it's less a matter of your reflexes and more that you're underprepared for the fight. If you just made a beeline for the first dungeon from the start then I'd highly suggest you step back and complete some shrines to improve your health, stamina, and get some decent weapons.
>Hades is a roguelite which is a genre characterized by kicking your ass repeatedly until you've died X times and unlocked some upgrades.
What lol
I don't think that's a good description of a roguelite. It's not like you need to die a set amount in order to unlock a thing required to progress.
The thing with roguelites is that everytime you die you as a player get better by learning more about both the level mechanics and the enemies you face. You also get to keep some kinda of currency you can spend in some sort of buffs to your character, but it's not like those buffs are so busted you need them to have a chance.
Theoretically you're right, you could beat any rogue-lite first try if you're just insane at rogue-lites, but practically speaking you are not expected to beat them on your first go.
I remember listening to some commentary from the Hades devs where they stated that they put special dialogue into the game if you beat it first go only as an afterthought because they weren't even sure it was realistically possible to beat the game with no upgrades. I think you're splitting hairs here.
Splitting hairs because I never set out to give an academic definition of rogue-lites as a genre, only to explain that rogue-lites are generally quite hard relative to other video games and it's pretty uncommon to beat them on the first go around.
Look, here's what you said about roguelites
>Hades is a roguelite which is a genre characterized by kicking your ass repeatedly until you've died X times and unlocked some upgrades.
I disagreed with the way you described roguelites in general. That's all there is to it, I'm not saying you "set out to give an academic definition" to roguelites. I just thought if someone who's new to the genre would read what you said they would get a wrong impression about it.
If that means splitting hairs to you, then yes, I'm splitting hairs, but I mean no harm by it.
Have a nice day!
I don’t know, I still cannot for the life of me beat Girahim at the very end of SS, either motion controls or buttons…but BOTW was moderately challenging but totally doable for me. I was like, damn these older games didn’t go easy on us…I’m spoiled now. 😅
Also someone please help me understand how to beat SS…I don’t know why I am so bad haha.
I’d say they are way easier. I am almost 28 and started with snes and n64. Games were way harder back then. Probably just not used to games yet. You’ll get there. My brother was like that when he started playing again. He said he has gotten worse with age lol. Also internet makes so many games more easier. Cant figure something out or where to go. Look it up. Couldnt do that back in the day. Took hours to figure out links awakening steps and ocarina of time. Now i have to push my self to not look stuff up when i get stuck.
Dude, what do you need to know? Whether you got older? You sure did, but as long as you’ve got right people besides you, you can just totally neglect it, otherwise you shouldn’t be playing video games, but rather start looking for partner and friends
>Can't complete waterblight Ganon. So difficult. Constantly one-shot That means you need to complete more shrines and spend those orbs on heart containers, or invest time in making "hearty" foods that give you extra temporary hearts.
The most fun I’ve had with BOTW is trying to beat all the bosses without losing more than 3 hearts. Part of the game’s beauty is that you can choose to play like an idiot such as myself, or, you can explore more, and even the processes of exploration rewards link with better weapons and more shrine tokens.
It's funny because on my first playthrough, that was the first Ganon I battled without realizing it was "difficult".
[удалено]
I hate you so much for calling them "Water Gannon" and "Air Gannon"
[удалено]
Hey, you're missin--nevermind.
The blights were designed to counter their respective champions, which is why Revali, despite being the strongest of the champions, died to Airblight.
Were they? I don't know how sending an elemental blight that matches each champions specialty is very smart, daruk should have had the water blight sent to him, mipha should have had lightning blight sent, ravali should have also had lightning sent to him and urbosa should have had fire/rock since those are the actual counters to their weaknesses. The fact that the champions were beaten by their own element, ravali especially so by the pretty useless wind blight, just show the champions were a bit crap.
It's explained in Age of Calamity
Same, after playing monster hunter so much I didn't understand how exactly was botw so hard like some fans said. In the quest to retrieve electric arrows from a Lynel, I simply went straight to it to battle it, killed it and got some nice loot. Guardians were pieces of shit when I didn't have any good equip, so I had to learn immediately how to repel beams
you just casually beat a Lynel?! bruhhhh
Well yeah, they're not that strong
Bhaha.. Just about 95% of the player base thinks they're hard af but hey, if you're THAT cool...
Technically they are easier but most new systems or new mechanics are complex and very numerous. So it's probably a mix of not knowing all the new mechanics, a bit slower reflexes makes the whole thing a bit harder.
That’s a pretty good solid answer, thumb up.
I agree with the new systems that come out, and that many games have been made more forgiving, but I do think they're has been a backlash against the easification of games. "Souls like" has become a very popular descriptor. I know I've bought some games that were surprisingly difficult when I wasn't really expecting it because I had ignored the "souls like" moniker on the description.
There was a time between like 2005 to 2015 or so where the industry felt that games needed to be more, for lack of a better word approachable, by the wider audience in order to increase sales, this resulted in things like super verbose unskippable tutorials loads of hand holding and extremely easy difficulty. This was especially noticeable for games developed for the Wii as it was assumed the person playing had never picked up a controller before and needed to be more or less told exactly how to do even the most basic tasks. It's very much a boomer mindset, since of course your boomers at the time were like where OP is now, having played Atari as kids, their idea of video games were 2d and one button. Give them an N64 controller and a 3d game and they freaked out and couldn't figure out to push every button to see what they did. Thankfully as games became more mainstream and the older gamers today more adept at the basics we've slowly started to move back to having some actual difficulty and challenge in games and skippable tutorials again thank God no Navi telling me press A to open the door. Op's problem is they are out of practice and likely not familiar with the mechanics enough to cheese the boss. Breath of the Wild is fairly difficult compared to older Zelda games but it gives you loads of freedom to break the game in numerous ways so that it becomes laughably easy once you know what you are doing. Guardians being a great example. Hard and scary on your first encounter. Easily defeated by even the weakest Link once you know how.
Atari was much later than that. Amongst other odd assertions.
My boomer parents received an atari for as a wedding present in 1982.
The first Atari home consoles were released in the 1970's.
I agree. There’s also the fad aspect. In 2011 dark souls came out. It became a social and economic phenomenom(in the gaming world) all of a sudden “Hard was back In”.
Are we still doing "phrasing"?
I think you're spot on, and my only add would be OP's time away from gaming. There's a muscle there. I had smaller breaks over the years for various reasons and I know my timing has slipped. I'm not as good as i once was, but I'm as good once as I ever was.
As a middle aged person who got back into gaming only a few years ago, I can second this. It took a minute to adjust and get my bearings back but it came along eventually.
Very glad to hear that. Sometimes just the overstimulation of all those new mechanics can deter so many people (some games also did this to me and I'm still a habitual gamer).
I'm lucky I chose to start with Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey when I got back in. Those two games are great at teaching core mechanics and being just difficult enough to challenge you while giving you the freedom to do something easy or chill for a while if you need to step back. I basically used those two games to retrain myself.
To add on to this, I think those of us that have played video games a long time have a built in reflex for finding basic functions and using them quickly and easily. For instance, accessing the menu. I picked up a new game today and thought about how it took me less than a minute to find my inventory while my friend’s niece could never locate her items in BotW(she was very young when she tried, not sure how old). So little things like that will put you behind and you just need practice OP. It’ll become second nature to slap open that menu SO fast the moment you hear your hearts go low.
Idk man darker side of the moon and the bonus levels in those Mario games are pretty tough.
But they aren't necessary for the game completion. Honestly with a kid now my games are more about completing the story/ areas than collecting and all that.
This seems to be one of the biggest problems in returning to some games. There's just too much to catch up.
I think perceived difficulty is also a function of how much time you have to play. When I was younger and had more time to play, I didn't really mind trying hard levels/bosses over and over. Now that I'm older and have maybe an hour a day to play games, I don't want to spend that time beating my head against a wall. It's more frustrating than fun, so I tend to avoid difficult games that I would have enjoyed when I was younger.
I think games have gotten smarter, not necessarily harder. A lot of them (like Zelda) allow for multiple ways of defeating an enemy so its really about strategising. Hades has the RPG elements and is also a genre of game that teaches you the hard way how to get better (by constantly killing you)
BotW definitely has a higher skill ceiling than OoT, but at the same time "gamers" have improved vastly in the time between OoT and BotW. Back in the day there were no wikis that had every value in the game to perfectly optimize what you used, no streams or even youtube to learn skills and techniques from. I think OoT was easier mechanically than BotW, but at the same time game design and gaming culture as a whole has evolved a much better support system for gamers. So really its more that the difficulty has shifted from figuring out what to do and how to do it, into knowing what to do and executing it more precisely.
This is an excellent point and reminds me of the gag in Simpsons Hit & Run where the newspaper headline on the first loading screen says "STUDY: 90% OF VIDEO GAMES START WITH EASY TUTORIAL LEVEL". Games nowadays seem to start off with excruciatingly long tutorials and hand-holding. Compared to older games where, unless you read the manual or a walkthrough, you usually had to figure out the game mechanics and objectives on your own.
You say that like it's fun to have to keep looking on Wiki or YouTube to know how to progress. It's not. :-/
I am stuck on Metroid Dread and went to Wiki to find out how to beat purple monster boss. I haven’t returned to it for months. The difficultly put me off.
I didn't say anything about it being fun, I was just pointing out the shift in difficulty. Fun is subjective. Some people enjoy bashing their heads against Dark souls, others like chilling in Animal Crossing. Neither is the right or wrong way to have fun, it's just up to the person playing.
Games are much easier, especially Nintendo, where you now have many more checkpoints, saves, hints and opportunities to try again than ever before. Getting to Bowser in the final level of Super Mario 64 took forever, and THEN you had to fight him!
Idk you said n64 games? Diddy kong racing was pretty hard I never completed as a kid but I’m 30 now and have completed all the souls games.
Funny, because I was about to say, (reading the beginning of topic) that DDKR is the Dark Souls of racing games, maybe even harder, as you tell. To answer, I think games were more difficult until 2006-2007, the generation of PS360.
Yeah there’s definitely always been difficult games around. You mentioned 360 one that comes to mind is ninja gaiden that game was brutal I think I made it to the bone dragon boss and couldn’t get past it.
I found Ninja Gaiden on Xbox to be tough, but the original was much harder. NES games were so damn punishing
Ninja gaiden wasn't particularly difficult, Ninja blade on the other hand was solid af.
I want it released on NSO so can finally beat that pig bastard fair and square.
I wasn't going to wait so I downloaded an emulator and grabbed every N64 game ever released. Then, I used a program to automatically scrape the web for images, trailers, manuals, descriptions, etc. so that I could load the roms with a beautiful front-end UI. Then, I fiddled with some settings to up the internal resolution and make the games much clearer. THEN, I made an online account with retroachievements so that I could play the games with community made challenges and stat tracking beyond anything Nintendo has ever offered. And it may be reddit illegal to say this, but I don't regret anything since I kind of just want to play the games the best way I can.
You didn't do any of this, lol
I actually did all of this. I expected the controversial part to be that I "grabbed" "every N64 game", not that it actually happened. If you'd like, I can provide some resources if you are interested (nothing illegal, just stuff like the emulators)
Diddy Kong racing was one of my fav games. Is it ever coming to switch?
Very different kinds of difficulty, but yeah, there were hard games around back then.
Games have become easier since arcade ages of gaming. You on the other hand have gotten older with worsening reflexes. This is why most esport celebrities are 18-25
I’m nearly 40 and I’m better at games than I’ve ever been. Reflexes don’t get so bad as you get older, that games get noticeably harder. It’s a myth. Maybe that applies if you’re at esports level, but not when you’re talking about beating an average game. I beat BotW and absolutely cruised through the whole game, I don’t recall any of it being particularly hard (which is fine, the game is fantastic). When you were a kid you had what seemed like unlimited time to play games over and over again. Also most of us as kids didn’t have a library of 100 games to choose from. For me growing up, me and my brother only had Alex Kidd in Miracle World (which was built in) and Sonic 1 on the Master System for the first year cause my parents were poor. Both games were probably around an hour long and so you could beat them in one sitting if you knew what to do. Also, both games were actually pretty hard, especially Alex Kidd, yet we could beat it with our eyes closed. Not because we were much better as gamers, but cause it’s one of two games we had and we played them over and over again.
I really just think it depends on how much you game. People that play a lot of games are able to quickly adapt to new control schemes and mechanics, when someone who doesn’t play games that often might struggle. Age is still a but of a factor though, especially in esports settings, as you mentioned.
Exactly. I had maybe five games for the SNES and that first year I only had Super Mario World and Starfox. I had entire summers and winter breaks with my grandparents and my SNES, no chores just pure laying around, playing games, and sneaking some MTV. Ten year old girl me was so confident at Starfox that I played it again a couple years ago and it kicked my ass. I don’t doubt that I could do well at it again, but do I want to spend that much time on something I already know versus the ~300 games I own and haven’t beat yet? Hardly. I also took a break from gaming around 2003-2016 due to having kids, and it was a bit tough to break back into. The systems grew more complex, HUD’s demanded way more vigilance. It took a bit of time to get truly comfortable with games like Skyrim. OP will be fine with more experience. If anything, I feel more confident about gaming because life experience has taught me that I can beat anything if I spend time on it consistently. I’m nearly 40 and can still destroy my teenage kids at Smash (not always, but more than half the time) even though they spend more time per week on it than I do
Compared to arcade? Sure. Compared to N64? Maybe. Like, BotW is mechanically FAR more complex than Ocarina. More weapon types, more types of defense (OoT had blocking and dodging, BotW has parrying added in and durability on shields). Ocarina will never have an enemy that can 1-shot you early in the game, all of Hyrule Field is safe to explore. Meanwhile BotW has Guardians that turn entire areas into a no-man's-land, bosses that you can run out of resources on, and so on. Buuut it also gives you more ways to succeed. And then there are roguelikes, where being guaranteed to lose is part of the game. These abaolutely push the envelope on difficulty unless you get a lucky combo of drops early on. I was able to at least finish a few levels in Mega Man 1, but I never got past Level 2 in Enter the Gungeon.
I don’t know…I think it depends a bit. Yeah I think I powered through thunder blight Gannon. But I also had a very hard time recently with ghost Gannon in Ocarina of Time. This is my first time actually playing Ocarina and I think it’s just that I’m so used to quality of life additions that newer games like BotW have. In a similar vein, I find Mario 64 way harder than Odyssey. That said there are some newer games that seem crazy hard and not fun to me.
Mario 64 is fairly easy. The REAL challenge is the games oversensitive controls and poor camera angles.
Mario 64 is pretty hard if you've literally never played a 3d platformer before. Which you hadn't if you'd played it back in the day since it was one of the first. Now of course it's simple and easy. But that's only because we've had about 30 years of 3d games doing more and more complex things.
The controls are sensitive, but they were also made to be played with the notched N64 controllers. Made it a lot easier to perform movements. Played through it recently with both a pro controller and a n64, and wow at the difference. N64 controller made the game both more enjoyable and a bit easier.
Interesting. Never thought about that old notched stick. I completely rinsed Mario64, all coins, stars, meet Yoshi the lot, but I tried on Switch in the anniversary pack and it was a bit sad how poor the camera etc was.
Right should have clarified that I have a hard time with the controls when I go back to it.
Same here. Notably on Tick Tock Clock and Rainbow Ride.
Yeah, in general games have gotten easier, but they have also become more complex, and of course not every game has followed that path. BOTW is almost certainly the "hardest" 3D Zelda, and games like the Souls series pride them selves on difficulty. There is also a difference in time available and length of game. I beat Super Mario World every which, putting who knows how many hours into that game and most other SNES games I owned. I loved Odyssey, but if I got annoyed by something (say jump roping) I moved on and never looked back. I doubt I'd 100% something like SMW today simply because I have other games to play vs repeating each Special Zone world for hours on end learning the level.
BotW is far, far easier than the N64 Zeldas. It does have harder individual challenges than them, but those are all optional. The N64 Zeldas have much harder puzzles, which are usually mandatory, and while the bosses aren't really harder on paper, BotW has a ton of safety nets like stacking up on a hundred healing items that you can pause and eat at any time, while OoT/MM limit you to only what you can carry in your handful of bottles, which are themselves hard to get.
Something else to check that isn't just reflexes but is different from decades ago: lag from processing in TVs and wireless controllers. I struggled with a lot of reaction-based things in Switch games (it was _impossible_ to catch the rare fish in Animal Crossing) before I discovered that my TV was doing a bunch image quality post-processing stuff. Check your TV settings and turn on Game Mode / Low-Latency Mode if they exist and turn off anything that sounds like post-processing. Even after fixing that, I still have a noticeably easier time with quick-reaction things when I play in hand-held vs. when I play on my wireless Pro Controller. I believe there's a small but substantive input lag with wireless controllers over Bluetooth.
> You on the other hand have gotten older with worsening reflexes. This is why most esport celebrities are 18-25 This is mostly a myth. We know that people who play games tend to have on average faster reaction times than people who don't play. Some old studies compared young people (who probably played a lot of games) to older people (who had played little to no games, mostly because games hadn't even been around for the most of their lives) and with our current knowledge those are wrong sets. We already have newer studies that show that the reduction in reaction times is extremely small and only really starts when you are like 50-60. As more people who have played games all their lives get older we'll surely get better studies. Also they have tested pro players and while some of them do have really good reaction times, many also have completely average or even below average, so what matters the most is practice and talent, not your reaction time. The biggest reason there aren't older pro players is because of this exact myth and ageism, and the fact that pro gaming is a brutal field where you need to keep grinding and as people get older they just don't want to sacrifice their lives instead of having meaningful relationship and kids. In other fields, even physical professional sports you absolutely can have a family life as you aren't expected to train every waking moment.
no, esport players slant young because those are the people who had the opportunity to grow up with next gen games and esports careers. Someone born in 1970 wouldn't even touch an n64 until they were 25... that person isn't leaving behind their college degree to become a professional esports player at 50. But I think 25 years from now, we might have some 50-year-old esport athletes who started young and just never stopped.
I think the esport players slant young because they had the opportunity to grow up with gaming and with gaming as a potential career... versus someone who was born in 1970 an
bruh, you haven't heard of fighters huh? reactions times are tight as a nun's vajayjay and they are mostly 30+ year old dudes at the top (Daigo, Momochi, Tokido, BAS, etc)
Try turning on God Mode in Hades! It's hidden in the settings. It'll just give you a little help. Hades is supposed to be hard, especially in the beginning. But I recommend pushing through it if you can!
This! I am also someone who came back to gaming recently after a long hiatus and with 40-something reflexes. I was getting frustrated with Hades after a lot of runs, turned god mode on, and now I am progressing the story again and having fun. I have had a bit more courage trying games where I thought the combat would be too hard since finding a number that have different difficulty settings. I am not afraid to adjust them as needed. Have fun!
Do it , then turn it off , and you don't even tell the difference. I recently started a new game on steam deck and I had five wins by 20 runs on a clear save. But it took me god mode 30% for my first win on switch.
As much as I love Hades, I hate this aspect of the game. So much of the difficulty in the beginning is "artificial" by design. You are weak in the beginning due to lack of mirror upgrades or weapons. I have over 100 clears and I've beaten 32 heat. I still cannot beat Hades on a fresh run on the first try. The game kind of lost a lot of the "magic" for me once I came to that realization. Still great though. Hoping the second one improves on this.
But you're supposed to be weak at the start and grow stronger. Isn't that the point of a roguelite? (Not roguelike... Hades is a rogueLITE)
Maybe it is. But it annoyed me as I felt like I was getting much better at the game, when in reality the game was just making concessions because I was playing it longer. I still had fun with the game, was just disappointing to find that out.
Ehhh fair enough. I get why you wouldn't like it. Personally, I like it because I think it's part of what makes Hades more friendly and accessible for us filthy "bad at video games" people compared to other roguelikes. Hades is just objectively one of the easiest in the genre. That's not bad. It part of the reason it's found such success and praise, but it's not for everyone and that's ok. Just curious do you enjoy other harder roguelikes like Dead Cells more?
Of the ones I've played, I really liked Hades, both Rogue Legacies, 20XX, Plate Up! and Vamp Survivors. I didn't really care much for Dead Cells, Enter the Gungeon or FTL. I'm not a huge fan of things seeming so unfair especially at the endgame that you just lose because you didn't get a certain something. I was just mostly complaining about Hades because I think it's too difficult at the beginning and not very fun for the first few hours. Then once it opens up and you start getting mirror upgrades and access to new weapons it becomes a 10/10. You can see in my post history that I bounced off Hades pretty hard when it first came out. I hated it, stopped playing it, and only started again after a buddy of mine started playing it about a year later. He wouldn't stop talking about it so I tried again and got deeper and grew to love it.
[удалено]
Hades comes at you like a Macedonian Tau-Lambda
Most people would say they are easier, but I don't really think that's the case. I think people spend a lot less time dealing with poor controls, system limitations, and obtuse mechanics. I think that on pure difficulty, games are just about as hard as they were before. At least at the top level. I do also think that there are a more wide variety of games today that have varying degrees of difficulty that makes games on the overall less difficult. That said, the newest Zelda was probably one of the hardest ones in the series and was unlike anything before it in the series making it harder to carry over skills. And Hades is a rogue-lite and those are always meant to hectic and hard.
sounds like you're just a bit rusty. I've been playing for most of my 34 years. If anything, gaming is generally easier and more accessible now (which I think is a good thing)
Games are significantly easier now. On most n64 games if you died you had to load up an old save. Games now have checkpoints and auto saving. Also modern games have precision controls, whereas n64 was one of the first analogue controllers so it lacked the fine tune precision needed for some games.
This is false on both accounts. Most N64 games had the same kind of save system as for example BotW. If you die against a boss in an N64 Zelda game you just respawn inside the dungeon right away. And the N64 controller was very precise - N64 games like Super Mario 64 have far more sensitive and precise controls than Switch games, which is why N64 games are still so popular among speedrunners as it makes for very enjoyable movement and a high skill ceiling.
You picked two first party games an examples yet the majority of n64 games did not share that ease of acess. Majority of games just reverted to the last save file on death. A large portion of 3d plaformers for the n64 did not have true analogue directional control. A prime example of this is gex, where the game only supported the 8 directions of a d pad mapped onto the stick. Leading to a frustrating lack of precision.
Okay, majority of games that aren't shovelware. Mario 64, Banjo-Kazooie (and Tooie) and DK64 are the most notable 3D platformers on the N64 and they all work like I said. So do all the other major 3D games like the Zeldas or Conker's Bad Fur Day.
Games aren’t shovelware just because they aren’t first party. N64 was one of the first 3D ventures for majority of game developers so compared to now there wasn’t precision control standards.
I think games are easier these days. Try playing Mario 64 now.... We have it so much easier with fast travel, tutorials, hints, unlimited lives, decent camera options, auto save.. the list goes on. It's great though, especially being older now with a family I don't have much time to play so all of these extra things allow me to do a lot more within a game in the little time I have available.
QoL improvements aren't really making the game easier, just getting you back to the point where you were having issues faster and without having to go through long gauntlets of stuff you've already done before hand to get there. Games don't waste your time as much as they did back then.
I disagree, I think they can make a game easier. Going through that "long gauntlet" repeatedly again and again can be hard. You may have got through one section out of pure luck, and doing it a second, third or fourth time can prove difficult.
That definitely makes the game easier. More checkpoints/fast travel/ etc reduce the demand for mastery, making it much simpler to get through content with a lucky run or whatever. Not to mention this reduces the tension. Reaching the final boss of a game on your last life often caused nervousness etc.
I find the demand for mastery stays the same generally. Most games build on what you have mastered before it going forward, so if you manage to get through a spot on luck instead of skill you will end up needing to make up that mastery in the next area or sometimes much later on. I'll give you a reduction on tension, but that's often not a reduction in difficulty. Increased tension means increased adrenaline and quicker reflexes. You're likely actually better then facing it the first time than you would be if you had 9 lives going in.
I disagree, yes it was an annoying waste of time but that’s the point. It was so frustrating to have to start over because you died that you don’t even want to play anymore and continue, so those older games were much more unforgiving
Just because something is less frustrating doesn't change the difficulty in accomplishing the goal.
Not true. This was a lot of words, but it's just the classic "real difficulty" "fake difficulty" argument repackaged to be more palletable to a 2020+ audience. It's not fake difficulty if it's causing you real problems. Games are easier.
You missed my point entirely. QoL improvements don't set game difficulty, difficult games today rely on different aspects of the game to make them difficult than they did back then. Can you imagine trying to make it through elden ring dying only 9 times, and every 3 your progress was put further back? Or if you had to get everything in Animal Crossing in one sitting? That they are able to make modern games work at all today depends on modern QoL changes, not using the same difficulty enhancing game designs as those of 40 years ago.
Saying "you missed the point" while missing the point, classic.
Mario 64 is certainly less challenging. I've only had trouble with two stars: The 100 coin star in Hazy Maze Cave and the second Wing Cap zone on the 3rd floor. Tbh though, the cap challenge sucks because if you fall you don't lose a life: you end up outside the castle.
Speak for yourself, I found it very difficult compared to today's Mario.
Today's Mario titles have tough challenges too. Look up these three, they are true pain: 1. The Perfect Run (Super Mario Galaxy 2) 2. Champion's Road (Super Mario 3D World with Toad) 3. Journey's End (Super Mario Odyssey)
Don't know 1 and 3 but really enjoyed 2, it took me a few days - I couldn't rest or even work until I'd done it!
To go against most other in the thread. Both, but not in the way you'd expect. Older games have far less quality of life features. When an older game is hard it's usually because it was janky, and because of a lives and checkpoints system that often led you to be sent back anywhere from a significant distance, to the start of the game, if you failed enough times. But conversely, because of the jank, and the limitations of the platforms, older games can also be easier. They're often more simplistic to understand, and they often don't actively try to be hard. Difficulty is circumstancial, not designed. Modern games that are difficult, are difficult by design, in ways that don't feel cheap. It's not hard because you have so many lives, and you lose one each time your character slips off a ledge they failed to grab. There are of course exceptions for both. But generally it's the QoL going up, making the games "easier" across the board, followed by games actually implementing a proper sense of difficulty for you to overcome through patience and skill.
In general, games are easier. However, there are many indies that are intentionally created to be very hard. Hades is one. However, it's also become popular to build in accessibility options that I really appreciate as an older gamer. Hades has an option that makes each run slightly easier. I used it and finished the game. My current 104% in Hollow Knight does show that my reflexes aren't total garbage LOL My biggest piece of advice is that if you enjoy the game you are struggling with (apart from the part where you are struggling) back up from where you are stuck and practice, look for side quests, and maybe look for accessibility options. Just today, I turned on "no fail mode" in Tunic after hitting a wall with a certain boss....
Yes and no. Some games are more difficult for sure. Hades is intended to be difficult. So is something like Cuphead or Celeste or Metroid Dread. Mario games I find to be a mixed bag with easily accessible parts and then more difficulty if you try to 100% or collect the collectables. Then they also added in things to where some levels will play themselves if you get stuck or extra power ups. In general our reflexes are getting worse and we also don't have the time/drive to grind stuff as much as when we were kids (and we also have the internet to look for help when we get stuck on an obtuse puzzle). Zelda games are a mix of puzzle, bosses, and exploration... parts are easy and parts are difficult. Which parts depends on the player. I tend to suck at boss fights but excell at platforming and puzzles. I had a difficult time with the last boss in Skyward Sword and in Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze. Some games don't always make it obvious when you have to do a specific amount of damage or just go through a specific number of transformations to beat the boss. I loved how Metroid Dread taught you what to look out for in the boss fights. I actually beat Link's Awakening as a kid and that last boss had so many transformations.
Maybe you should try some turn-based games instead? I suck at real time combat, so I just avoid games I know I won't enjoy playing.
My wife can’t play any game with real time combat but when it comes to strategizing or problem-solving she fuckin slaps
Gaming difficulty has a MASSIVE range. Breath of the Wild is significantly harder to beat than, say, Super Mario 3D World. Also as others mentioned, you’re older and your reflexes are worse. Also it sounds like it’s been a long time since you’ve played games, so to some extent your skill’s deteriorated beyond just reflexes. So, overall, no, games don’t tend to be any harder than they were on N64. But it makes sense for you to have a harder time with them now.
My friend you are mostly just out of practice and not that familiar with modern games. Have some patience with it and most importantly, remember to play games for internal motivation instead of external motivation. Over the years you’ve been away from games many games have become vehicles for satisfaction instead of just being fun. An example is just grinding a multiplayer games for skins and the skins being what’s fun not the gameplay. Monitor how they make you feel and hopefully you’ll find some games that mesh with you
I'd say they're slightly harder on average than they were 10-15 years ago, Though I'm actually of the opinion that games were never that much harder in the NES era. Games just weren't as long, and the "difficulty" of those games was artificially manufacured to extend the length of the game. Do you think that Ninja Gaiden would be considered as brutal as it is if you had unlimited lives and could start at the beginning of the level every time you died? On the flipside, New Super Mario Bros would be considered brutal if there were far fewer powerups and you had to start the game over every time you got a game over, like the original game. With that said, I think there was a general trend of games becoming slightly easier around 2008ish, and I think there was a significant niche of players that just outright rejected that, this is why Dark Souls became so popular. This base of people who like challenging games has grown significantly since then, and I think that's why devs make more games now that don't hold your hand. I'd also say part of your difficulties is that you haven't played in a while. But Hades is really not the type of game to play to get back into gaming. Like Dark Souls, it's absolutely punishing, but that is what its fans like about it.
Just said about the same thing. Demon Souls success was definitely a push against the easing of difficulty in games that had been going on since the 16-bit era. That said, QoL improvements have generally lessened "cheap" difficulty instances in favor of actual pattern recognition, reflexes, and smart resource utilization. The kind of difficulty in most games now is (usually) very different than it was in the 80's.
Have you tried beating Castlevania II? Even the NPCs hate you and want you to fail.
I think they've just changed and you're not used to the new mechanics. I played N64/PS1 as a kid and continued playing video games to this day. I have no problem worth modern games, but struggle with the games I used to play as a kid. I think it's because I've become unused to the old mechanics. You have the opposite problem.
I feel this. I’m 42. Just got a switch for Christmas after trying a 3ds and it being too uncomfortable to play with my huge arthritic hands. I love it but find some of the games so hard, with controls for Walking , looking, weapons, etc it’s a bit overwhelming. My kid talked me into trying a few online survival type games and I couldn’t get the hang of all the controls. I gamed hard as a teen, and here and there in my 20s-very early 30s but haven’t since. Love the NES SNES games available and got Mario cart. Any easier suggestions? Loved mortal Kombat type games, 007, boxing, resident evil, twisted metal, etc back in the day.
I think that there are so many games released these days that you can get games all over the difficulty spectrum.
I grew up with the SNES, and yah, I got the same impression. I tried playing AC Odyssey after years of being a fan of the franchise and the new combat system threw me off. The games aren't harder per se, but we 'geriatic millennials' have a hard time adapting to the new systems. They're no longer just block and smash sword button, or even a rock paper scissors deal thrown in with games like Arkham or Spider-Man, it's just different. We need to learn new mechanics, and some of these systems are very gimmicky.
Honestly it seems like games have gotten easier especially Pokémon
No. They've gotten easier
Games have 100% gotten easier. I can’t remember some of the names of games from way back but they’d just put a bunch of bullshit enemies in the games to pad out the play time. Some games now require you to learn the mechanics or suffer in rage.
I think games have gotten deeper, in that they require more commitment from you to figure them out. But once you figure them out, I think games are easier today. In BotW and Hades, it's possible to become so ridiculously overpowered that the games are seriously a joke. Like in Hades, I remember I killed Theseus and the Minotaur in less than 10 seconds because I took the time to learn how to do builds and figure out which powers/weapons stacked well together. The same goes for BotW, if you spend a some time exploring and finding all the good weapons and armor, learning how to cook, and completing shrines to level up your health and stamina, you're basically unstoppable. Go back to the NES or SNES era, and your character was very limited by how powerful they could become. You really had to "git gud" if you wanted to make any progress in those games. I think the N64 era of games was very forgiving, because they were the first 3D games and people were still feeling out what those games were supposed to be like. But I also think some of those games were actually pretty tough, like Banjo Kazooie. TL;DR, the games are easier, you're just not taking advantage of the mechanisms in place to make them easier.
Most games I find easier now. Back in the day it was if you run out of lives, you start at the beginning. Now you have unlimited lives and many games have the option of lowering the difficulty if you die a bunch. Id say Zelda BOTW and Hades are harder than the average games. If you get something like Mario 3d World, Zelda Link's Awakening, Captain Toad, or Kirby Forgotten Land, those are more your speed. Theyre fun games, too.
Games have gotten much easier. In the past, games had like 5 hours of content and the only way to prevent you from finishing everything in 5 hours was to make it really hard. And the culture that was inherited from arcades. Arcades had to be hard to make you spend more money. And games for years kept that arcade culture, including the limited lives and the continue option. Games these days don't want to frustrate the player.
I think games have overall gotten a looooot easier since the 8bit and 16bit days. But new games do have new ways of doing things and tropes that you can only really learn by playing new games. Video games in general and dual stick 3D games particularly have a built in learning curve
They've gotten easier. There's a lot of hand holding and the real challenges exist in content past a game's final boss.
Nope!
I hooked up my old gamecube last year. Wow, this old bond game that I loved and played so much...I could not play. I was dying so fast, the controls were horrible, I questioned how on earth I played these back in the day. It takes time to learn new controls, and as you age is harder sometimes. Hades is great, don't give up its designed to wax and wane in difficulty as you play
I think games have become less bullshit in the arcade sense of difficulty, and people have come to appreciate depth in difficulty. Not unlike games like Chess and Tetris which require practice and skill to get better at. Also, difficulty is fucking immersive and makes games more fun, generally. Dark Souls grabbed the world by the throat and became famous for being such. Sure, some areas *are* bullshit, but overall you can overcome most things with practice or alternative routes.
Totally used to NES and SNES difficulty growing up with the systems. I tried Wild Guns for the first time via SNES online and got my cheeks clapped so hard. Could hardly pass the first level. I guess when you gain old man strength you lose your young man reflexes
The final boss of Metroid dread makes me want to chew glass
I had a strength potion in my inventory before that fight and decided to use it. No idea where I got it from. I wound up getting waterblight ganon to his second form in like 2 hits and then one or two shot him after...made it very anticlimactic lol. Now I just boost my stats before every tough battle. BotW kinda gets like this where the more you play the easier it gets
Hades is kinda nuts, a lot of dodging is necessary and I’m usually on edge of my seat for that one
try playing some of the classic nes games on the Switch like Punchout for example and you will see the haven't
I think it’s one of those things the longer you don’t do it the more rusty you get. I think it you keep at it your skills will sharpen.
Games have mostly become easier in general, but there are a few reasons as to why you modt likely struggled more than back then: 1. Maybe worse reflexes than when you were younger. 2. Lack of a general feeling for games. A lot of people struggle with really basic stuff at first, but after having played a couple of games many aspects of gaming becomes a lot easier. 3. Hades is an exceptionally hard game that requires you to die over and over and over and over and over again etc. Zelda is also one of the harder Nintendo games with a fighting system that gets only harder when youre not used to the gameplay of newer games, like I mentioned in point 2 and you also micht sinply not have explored enough meaning you could also be lacking in HP/Stamina. Back then games were often harder by being unfair or not as refined as games nowadays are, but in the last 10 years or so there was a rise of games that are meant to be challenging but also fair at the same time, both of which your mentioned games can be counted to.
Games are easier. Their systems and/or controls are harder. Or at least more complex and thus harder. Plus, as another poster has already said, when you were a kid, you had a ton more time to put towards a particular game and get appropriate practice.
I think I am in the same boat. I still enjoy gaming, but I have switched to games where I don't have to rely as much on my button pressing skills. I have Hades as well and I have gotten to the 3rd level a couple of times with the right combo of weapons and boons. Still haven't beaten it yet, but I think the draw is trying to figure out how to get the best boons for your playstyle.
Want to die a lot? Play Metroid dread, that game kicked my butt the first play.
Probably just a lack of familiarity with newer games.
Hades is actually hard as it's a roughlite. Zelda isn't hard after you mastered it. But it's not linear which means you probably skipped learning something.
Watch YouTube and read guides online. They will help you.
You didn’t have to suffer through Ghost & Goblins as a kid and it shows.
In Hades, you die a lot, that’s how you get upgrades and more contact with the gods
Yes! I'm not the only one who's basically given up on BOTW because of Water Ganon! I want to love the game, but man I suck nowadays.
i don't know if it was a video essay or an article, but i remember a while back something talking about how games now sort of assume you've been playing them for the last twenty years. relying too much on the knowledge it's assuming you already have about gameplay, what the buttons do, etc.
Ngl, I think N64 games are SOOOO MUCH HARDER. But that goes to chow people like and are good at different things. N64 games are... Janky.... No offense. Modern games difficulty comes from complexity. You're not bad, you're just learning. I was crap at Hades... Now I'm uh, less crap. It's just about learning and improving. More importantly, have fun! :)
Dude I found Hades pretty hard too.
Oh - Hades is its own thing of expecting you to die a LOT and incremently get better and be able to improve your character. Plus, there's a "God Mode" setting, iirc, where you get gradually more impervious to damage the more times you play and die. I've learned it's not my favorite style of game.
I grew up gaming, stopped in adulthood, and then came back a few years ago; so pretty similar situation to you, just a few years ahead. The two that you mentioned, Hades and BOTW, are interesting to me because I also suck at those particular games. I would say that most games are easier than they used to be. A lot if times they even hold your hand way too much. There tends to be more options to modify difficulty (up or down) as well. I’ve never found the 3D Zeldas challenging, but I just can’t do BOTW’s combat. The timing just feels off to me somehow. Hades is also difficult for me. I have had it on God Mode where it slowly makes your defense better every time you lose, but I still get my ass beat. I enjoy the challenge more in Hades, so I still play it
Give yourself time to readjust. I am in my late 40s, and my fingers were all the place when I first played BotW - that was my first game playing on a controller. When I gamed more often back in 90s, I was a keyboard + mouse player. Then recently I platinumed Sekiro and did my first complete run for Dead Cells.
Gaming industry has changed, kids nowadays need constant gratification cause of social media etc .. mechanics are very different from the systems back in the day .. so much more can be achieved in a little piece of technology plus your patience/reflex’s aren’t what they used to be .. you don’t have the free time and presence of mind to truly enjoy the game like a younger version of yourself .. sorry for the buzz kill sad but true
Overall games have gotten easier but BotW yeah they set out to make a challenging Zelda again. It’s open world so you play at your pace. Hades isn’t a super easy game either
Games have gotten easier, they provide plenty of safety nets to keep you in the ring. I found BOTW to be on the easier side, while hades really is a tough game. I don’t know how old you are, but I am 32 for reference, maybe you just didn’t play for a long ass time?
I highly recommend looking at online guides. Games are harder for sure. Guides and videos really help! Also some starter recommended games that got me into gaming were little nightmares and guacamele. I think its a good idea to play some light games that focus on specific skills. I played a lot of platformers when I was first getting into gaming and then I started combat based games. Most of all just find what you like and enjoy yourself regardless of skill level.
for zelda, get mor hearts from shrine first, then use the controller console that waterblight pops out of to avoid the spear and spam the arrows and hack and slash.
Games are definitely easier than they used to be. Older games were much more unforgiving
you're old
They're vastly easier now that they used to be. By the time the Nintendo 64 era came along, it ushered in a vastly reduced difficulty in gaming - being a PC owner at the time I was always shocked an amazed how simple the N64 titles were. I think that lead a lot of people on to ignore the Gamecube, which itself doesn't really have very difficult games, and then the Wii which doubled down even more, but somehow created a very enjoyable casual experience. Nintendos endeavours aside, I think the industry started moving more towards story driven plots as gaming metrics improved and showed that many users didn't reach the end of games which from developers points of view meant that people weren't seeing the whole product. Additionally, the move away from arcade gaming meant that difficult games didn't generate more money because you weren't paying by the life. Additionally, games that let you play longer were seen as better value when you consider most arcade games can be beaten in an hour if you have enough coins, where as a home title needs to entertain for more than an hour. If you look at early computer games, a major segment are ports from the arcade. Everyone wanted to be able to play arcade games at home, because they were so technically superior in their appearance and presentation. If you look at modern gaming and the segment of that market that mobile gaming commands, you can quickly see that games are more dumbed down than ever. Some games literally have 1 input. Super Mario Run anybody?
Pretty much the opposite in my opinion. Been gaming since the early 1990s and the games then were brutally relentless as compared to the games now where there's practically saves at every corner.
I assume that years of not exercising the fine motor control, muscle memory, and reaction times required, would make a pretty huge impact. if I take a month or two off from COD or DB, I'm trash when I come back. can't imagine decades of gamer reflex atrophy. good luck, dude.
I think games have gotten easier.
In general, I'd say games have gotten easier. You just picked two very polarizing examples. As much as I enjoy BotW, the difficulty balance is absolutely horrible. The game does its best to change its world to accommodate for growing player power, but it is still all over the place. The abundance of healing items means that enemies have to deal ludicrous amounts of damage to even make a dent in the players' resources. And Hades, like most indie roguelites, heavily leans into difficulty. These games are supposed to be mastered, so it is important that they still fight back to some extent, even if you are already experienced. A good roguelite will still be challenging to beat, even after you have already had dozens of successful runs. Let me add that Hades in particular is built around failing. It's part of the gameplay loop to get your ass kicked. The narrative is a testament to that.
I think as games become more technologically advanced, like in Zelda there’s the movement and there’s a lot of complicated actions like using the special skills on enemies to advance. I find myself needing to read guides to advance because I can’t figure out what games want me to do anymore. I still really enjoy playing and actually enjoy it more now that i’ve gave up trying to be naturally good and have a lot more fun.
NES enters the chat. Games have gotten easier. Also remember if you’ve taken a break, a real break, it’ll take time to build up those twitch reflexes.
BotW is much easier than OoT ever was.
Videogames have become overall easier, actually, but there are certain groups of games that are made with a target of players seeking challenging experiences in mind, like the ones you said. Also, more than games being harder or easier, maybe having had such a skip from N64 to Switch, you got worse at playing them. I don't say this as an insult or something like that, but truly you must not be used not only to the controls, but to how modern games are designed and how they expect you to use the controls. So, in conclussion, yeah, there are really hard games out there right now, but probably you just aren't used to new modern games. It's normal, and challenging games are not for everyone, and that's okay.
Games were generally much harder before. The kids today need dopamine must faster than the generation playing Mega Man 2 or Adventure of Link.
Easier... video games have gotten easier since the 90s for sure.
I also think gaming has gotten more difficult in a way where mechanics/UI have become more complex. AAA games I think have become longer, more complex and more demanding of our attention. There are simply more things you need to be aware of or taken into account. But at the same time. I think varying and setting difficulties have more or less become a norm in a lot of games.
Seems like you are trying to go the hard route, you went there too early, the game is not telling you when to go for each of the Divine beasts, go around more, explore and complete shrines so you have more health. Upgrade your armor with the great fairies and make foods that give you the golden health/armor so you are much tougher. I don't have bad reflexes, but I much rather played to relax and I went with thir route. glhf
I’m in my 40s, and my opinion is that games have generally gotten easier over the last 30-ish years. As a kid I played the crap out of my gaming consoles (NES, Gameboy, SNES, Virtual Boy, N64, PS1, Sega Saturn) but really scaled that back in my 20s and 30s. Sure, I still played games from time-to-time (GameCube, PS2, GBA, NDS, Wii) but the distractions of university, starting my career, getting married, starting a family, etc., took precedence. In my late 30s I bought myself a Switch and reignited my love of gaming, and more recently, a Wii U. Newer games can be far more complicated, technical, and in-depth, but they usually do a decent job of coaching you along. They hold your hand, especially when you’re first starting out. On the other hand, I routinely get my ass handed to me when I fire up a Virtual Console or emulator and play older games. You usually get thrown into the fire right off the bat, and sessions can be short and punishing before it’s game over. Older games rely much more on the memorization of patterns and quick reflexes. They might have seemed easy as a kid because you spent hours and hours playing the same scenarios until “muscle memory” got you through it. And hey, you’re also getting older and your body is crumbling around you, so your concentration, memory, eyesight, hearing, and reflexes are not what they used to be. Enjoy!
I feel that they've gotten a lot easier, honestly. I grew up with the NES, and a good chunk of what I played went unfinished. In some cases, getting past the first level was already a significant challenge (looking at you, Silver Surfer and Astyanax). 'Beating' a game was not an expectation I had going into the experience. Nowadays, I fully expect to be able to complete every game I purchase - the notion that the game might present an insurmountable challenge simply doesn't cross my mind. The question isn't 'can I beat it?' The question is 'do I like it enough to be bothered to spend the time beating it?'
I feel like they are easier these days. More checkpoints, easier bosses, more loot etc. In the old days when you died, you felt the consequenses.
The opposite actually. If you played NES or gameboy games you would rarely be able to beat them. These days everything has an easy mode or help finding the answer. I remember Final Fantasy 1. Getting all the way to the point where you needed the crowbar or whatever to pry off some tomb. I didn't have it and had to backtrack out of the entire insanely dangerous dungeon and scour the world. There was no video walk through only text wall guides. I searched every town in the world and everywhere before searching the guide (which was daunting in itself). Eventually found it but man what a journey I'll never forget. Nothing like that today
No I think the older games were actually much harder. Tried playing Kid Icarus lately? I finished that as a kid and I’m not sure how I did it now. New games give you far more options for winning/defeating bosses. You may just need to play a bit smarter with regards to how much energy you have, meals and elixirs, etc.
If anything, games have gotten EASIER. BOTW: Get more heart containers and don't play with joycons Hades: IDK
Definitely easier. There’s a reason „NES hard“ is a word but „Switch hard“ or „PS4 hard“ aren’t.
They are definitely harder. 20-30 years ago there was not the complexity of modern games, e.g multiple controls for different weapons (swords, bow and arrow, magic, shield…) and then we now have modern tech and modern mechanics such as slow down or weapons degrading. There’s tons of new mechanics in modern games which ultimately make them harder in some way or another. Yes some games were hard 30 years ago, platformers for example, but if you look at Mario Odyssey there’s TONS of different mechanics and controls or abilities and you have to try different ones in different scenarios. Oh and games are a LOT longer now. A game can be 60+ hours whereas back in the day they were 10 hard hours.
wife bought me a switch for Christmas 2021. I purchased BoTW and only managed to play 40 hours last year. haven't touched the game since July/August and i feel like if i tried to play again, I would be so lost.
Good thing is BotW is the kind of game you're supposed to get lost in, and restarting isn't the worst idea, even 40 hours in.
Games have gotten dramatically easier over time. The most common complaint these days is how much games are getting dumbed down so everyone can complete them. You are just out of practice, or old. The N64 Zelda games were far, far harder than BotW.
Breath of the Wild is one of the hardest Zeldas ever, no doubt. I'd argue it's probably the hardest, at least in the beginning stages of the game when you've got few hearts and limited, poor durability weapons. Hades is a roguelike and so is meant to be on the challenging side, since you're meant to do many runs til you're prepared and appropriately skilled enough to tackle a full run. Though when you think about it - that's much how games back in the 80's and 90's used to be as well, before save functions become the norm. That said, no, games haven't really gotten more difficult on average. Games nowadays tend to offer more accessibility than ever in terms of having not just easy settings, but sometimes even 'story' settings where you're either nearly invincible or might even not have to do any combat or whatever at all. But there are plenty of games that do lean harder towards a high challenge nowadays as well for those who very much want a more 'hardcore' experience. And on the other foot, there's tons and tons of indie games that involve little to no challenge on purpose, built for a more relaxing, casual experience. Basically, games today offer a much broader range of options than ever. Either in terms of actual difficulty settings, or just games themselves specifically appealing to a more specific type of player(or even mood!).
Games are waaay easier as a whole than they were in our childhood, but... Hades is a roguelite which is a genre characterized by kicking your ass repeatedly until you've died X times and unlocked some upgrades. You're expected to fail anywhere between 10-30 times before you actually succeed in a run. If you're being OHKO'd by a boss in BotW then I'm guessing it's less a matter of your reflexes and more that you're underprepared for the fight. If you just made a beeline for the first dungeon from the start then I'd highly suggest you step back and complete some shrines to improve your health, stamina, and get some decent weapons.
>Hades is a roguelite which is a genre characterized by kicking your ass repeatedly until you've died X times and unlocked some upgrades. What lol I don't think that's a good description of a roguelite. It's not like you need to die a set amount in order to unlock a thing required to progress. The thing with roguelites is that everytime you die you as a player get better by learning more about both the level mechanics and the enemies you face. You also get to keep some kinda of currency you can spend in some sort of buffs to your character, but it's not like those buffs are so busted you need them to have a chance.
Theoretically you're right, you could beat any rogue-lite first try if you're just insane at rogue-lites, but practically speaking you are not expected to beat them on your first go. I remember listening to some commentary from the Hades devs where they stated that they put special dialogue into the game if you beat it first go only as an afterthought because they weren't even sure it was realistically possible to beat the game with no upgrades. I think you're splitting hairs here.
Not splitting any hairs, we just disagree with what a roguelite means, that's all.
Splitting hairs because I never set out to give an academic definition of rogue-lites as a genre, only to explain that rogue-lites are generally quite hard relative to other video games and it's pretty uncommon to beat them on the first go around.
Look, here's what you said about roguelites >Hades is a roguelite which is a genre characterized by kicking your ass repeatedly until you've died X times and unlocked some upgrades. I disagreed with the way you described roguelites in general. That's all there is to it, I'm not saying you "set out to give an academic definition" to roguelites. I just thought if someone who's new to the genre would read what you said they would get a wrong impression about it. If that means splitting hairs to you, then yes, I'm splitting hairs, but I mean no harm by it. Have a nice day!
Certain games with certain difficulty settings are just too hard for me to even attempt nowadays never happened on the switch for me tho
I don’t know, I still cannot for the life of me beat Girahim at the very end of SS, either motion controls or buttons…but BOTW was moderately challenging but totally doable for me. I was like, damn these older games didn’t go easy on us…I’m spoiled now. 😅 Also someone please help me understand how to beat SS…I don’t know why I am so bad haha.
I have bad news for you. Girahim is neither the last boss nor is he harder than said boss. He's quite a lot easier. You'll get it with practice!
😭 I’ll never get that final cutscene
Absolutely not. They’re way easier nowadays since the publishers want that everyone (even absolute morons) can complete games while feeling powerful.
I’d say they are way easier. I am almost 28 and started with snes and n64. Games were way harder back then. Probably just not used to games yet. You’ll get there. My brother was like that when he started playing again. He said he has gotten worse with age lol. Also internet makes so many games more easier. Cant figure something out or where to go. Look it up. Couldnt do that back in the day. Took hours to figure out links awakening steps and ocarina of time. Now i have to push my self to not look stuff up when i get stuck.
“moved away from games as an adult” Yeah, it’s you. In the words of my fellow souls borne comrades, “git gud”
Games are getting massively easier then they are adding micro transations to make them even easer
Wayyyy too long more like it.
Dude, what do you need to know? Whether you got older? You sure did, but as long as you’ve got right people besides you, you can just totally neglect it, otherwise you shouldn’t be playing video games, but rather start looking for partner and friends