If anything, those games are fair, compared to platforms like Amiga, where there was no expectation that the player should even be able to beat the game.
I think a big reason why people think these games are so fricking hard is because they try to play them now on shitty LCD screens with a truckload of input lag
Like sure there are definitely some challenging NES games but as far as the majority goes they're no more difficult than today's Hollow Knights or what have you
I think it has more to do with the fact that zoomers have extremely minimal experience with this type of game, and their insistence on just savestating their way through them means they never actually get any real experience with them either.
This is really true. I found myself playing older games and forgetting how essential the manual was for them. Once I remembered that, reading the manual before playing makes for a much more enjoyable play-through.
As someone who plays on a CRT this is completely false nowadays, this isn't 2010. Modern high quality 144hz displays add negligible input lag. The emulator is going to add more input lag than the monitor is, and even then thats not anywhere near as big of an issue as it once was - nestopia iirc adds only a frame of input lag these days and that's without setting frameskip, you can just set 1 frame of it and have no input lag at all.
No, games were hard back then because if they went out of their way to frick over the player they couldn't clear the game on an overnight rental. It cost too much to make games bigger/longer but cost nothing at all to limit continues, add blind jumps over pits, and cut back on power ups and extra lives in order to prolong the games experience.
It's just cope, taking a few select cases and applying them as a general rule so he can feel better about his ineffiency at getting good. Just like "it's hard because rentals", only a few select things can really be blamed on that. Genuinely believing that the entire industry was out to "frick with players", in a post crash era mind you, is really fricking dumb.
I didn't realize this guy was responsible for every 8-bit and 16-bit console game, quite a feat really.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Right he was the only one in the entire industry worried about rentals.
Meanwhile disney licensed games: >Westwood co-founder Louis Castle even apologized to fans during a “Devs Play” video with Double Fine Productions: “The reason we had to do it was because the rental market was that if people got a certain distance in the game, metrics from Disney said they wouldn’t buy the game.”
Right he was the only one in the entire industry worried about rentals.
Meanwhile disney licensed games: >Westwood co-founder Louis Castle even apologized to fans during a “Devs Play” video with Double Fine Productions: “The reason we had to do it was because the rental market was that if people got a certain distance in the game, metrics from Disney said they wouldn’t buy the game.”
Have you noticed both your examples come from western games from an era where a good western game on consoles were the exception?
2 years ago
Anonymous
Only western decs did this
Then explain contra 3, ninja gaiden 3, castlevania 3 and many others. They removed checkpoints and powerups, limited or removed continues and increased enemy damage in numerous japanese games when porting them to the western rental dominated market. Dynamite Headdy was most aggressive of all, just saying “frick your continues, go buy the game”.
With battletoads the western one was built to frick over rental market from the start, and then when it came time for a japanese release they slowed down the difficult stages and gave out 5 lives and 5 continues making it a far more merciful experience since japan didn't have the rental industry problem.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Explain these
Konami of America, Tecmo America and Konami of America. Funny word they all coincide with.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Your argument is flawed because it considers rentals being in the center of everything. Rentals weren't nearly as huge in Europe as in the US, and yet Battletoads was the same in Europe as in the US (British devs remember), as for Castlevania 3 it was still harder in Europe than in Japan
On the other side, there are also tons of dev interviews which explain that in the west, players were actually looking for a challenge, while in Japan the majority of players were more casual. This is also corroborated by the fact that almost every magazine at the time had a rating system that took "longetivity" into account, often basing that on the game's difficulty (Nintendo Power even called it "lasting challenge" for a while, not just how long the game was, but how challenging it was), therefore the harder the game is = the higher the score. Japanese magazines didn't have that.
This is easy to forget these days since the mentality is not the same anymore, especially since the Wii era. It's even harder to fathom to zoomers who never knew this mentality.
"Rentals" are only a tiny bit of the explanation on game's difficulty, sure there are some cases of changing a mechanic here and there; but even without rentals the experience would have been mostly the same.
P.S: ninja gaiden 3 US is still a lot easier than NG1/2; and in the Japanese version they made it so easy you can literally just tank hits against bosses and spam the attack button and come out a winner. That's not how an action game is supposed to work. They made it easier for the Japanese audiance, who didn't care for action games as much, not the other way around.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Rentals weren't nearly as huge in Europe as in the US, and yet Battletoads was the same in Europe as in the US (British devs remember), as for Castlevania 3 it was still harder in Europe than in Japan
They were not going to make a new version of the game for all 8 people in englandland who owned the NES. You get americas sloppy seconds, PALified and you were grateful for it.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>They were not going to make a new version of the game for all 8 people in englandland who owned the NES.
Now you're saying even more stupid things to try back up the first stupid thing. The PAL NES market was fricking huge. According to wikipedia numbers, it was about 50-50 NES/SEGA in all Europe, the problem being those numbers are not reliable (only "source" is some magazine article from the 90's which itself says those numbers are estimates), from my experience it was 80-20 for NES but I'm willing to give those numbers a doubt and perhaps it was the other way around in East Europe (where Nintendo of Europe took a while to establish itself, there being less money to be made there) thus making it 50-50 overall for Europe. Point is it was huge.
and yet it happened. >Most gamers, whether they've played it or not, know that The Lion King is hard, but what most people don't know is that the developers made the game extremely difficult on purpose. Disney actually told the developers to make the game so difficult that people wouldn't be able to beat it during a rental period. The game came out when rental stores were immensely popular, and Disney didn't want people to get more than halfway through the game so that the chances of them buying it would be higher. The developers disagreed with Disney's decision, but went back and tweaked the levels to make things more difficult even though the game targeted a younger audience.
Yeah it happened, but those were exceptions, not the norm. The Lion King is precisely known for its insane difficulty, meaning it's known for being an exception in that regard. If every game was like that, you wouldn't be talking about The Lion King.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Lion King isn't known for insane difficulty, it's known for having a moronicly bullshit second level that takes a billion tries to figure out. It's not too bad outside of that one level.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Lion King is mostly talked about because Disney's 2D movies were a phenomenon at the time and it was released on both major consoles, so a lot of kids either owned or rented it. That's also probably why so many people remember it being harder than it was.
2 years ago
Anonymous
The developer in an interview literally explained how disney was worried about rentals and demanded the game be harder. The developer countered that it was a kids game and Disney said they would not get paid if they didn't comply.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yeah but they tweaked one level to be slightly obnoxious it's nowhere near "insane difficulty."
2 years ago
Anonymous
rentals were huge but no dev was moronic enough to design a game specifically to frick over rentals. If your game was good enough to be a popular rental, it was going to sell more also. You certainly weren't going to frick over actual primary sales customers in order to thwart rentals. Nobody would have been that fricking stupid. But it was a good enough bait to get me to reply so enjoy the you.
2 years ago
Anonymous
and yet it happened. >Most gamers, whether they've played it or not, know that The Lion King is hard, but what most people don't know is that the developers made the game extremely difficult on purpose. Disney actually told the developers to make the game so difficult that people wouldn't be able to beat it during a rental period. The game came out when rental stores were immensely popular, and Disney didn't want people to get more than halfway through the game so that the chances of them buying it would be higher. The developers disagreed with Disney's decision, but went back and tweaked the levels to make things more difficult even though the game targeted a younger audience.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>They were not going to make a new version of the game for all 8 people in englandland who owned the NES.
Now you're saying even more stupid things to try back up the first stupid thing. The PAL NES market was fricking huge. According to wikipedia numbers, it was about 50-50 NES/SEGA in all Europe, the problem being those numbers are not reliable (only "source" is some magazine article from the 90's which itself says those numbers are estimates), from my experience it was 80-20 for NES but I'm willing to give those numbers a doubt and perhaps it was the other way around in East Europe (where Nintendo of Europe took a while to establish itself, there being less money to be made there) thus making it 50-50 overall for Europe. Point is it was huge.
[...]
Yeah it happened, but those were exceptions, not the norm. The Lion King is precisely known for its insane difficulty, meaning it's known for being an exception in that regard. If every game was like that, you wouldn't be talking about The Lion King.
it is the same with Bayou Billy btw, it is known for being ---exceptionally- hard
2 years ago
Anonymous
That game was the worst offender. The following changes were done to make the American version more difficult: >Enemies in the beat-em-up stages move faster, deal twice as much damage, and take twice as many hits to kill. >The amount of bullets started with in the shooting stages, normally 150/100 in Mad City, has been cut down to 50/100. >There is less fuel for the buggy in the driving stages. It also takes a single hit to destroy, when it had a health bar in Mad City and takes visible damage in the form of losing the top.
Konami seemed the most concerned over the rental market, as they did this in many other games of that era besides bayou billy but not quite as aggressive.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>That game was the worst offender. > they did this in many other games of that era besides bayou billy but not quite as aggressive.
Because Bayou Billy was literally they first time they did it.
2 years ago
Anonymous
They also made the driving stages much longer and more involving, which is a good thing.
Also Mad City is honestly way too easy for its own good, Bayou Billy is a much more fun experience.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Maybe that happened, it certainly makes for a good game journo story on a slow day.
But even then it was fricking Disney-- what the frick did they know about videogame marketing in the 90s? They were coming from a Movie israelite mindset and didn't know jack shit. Your comment even says the developer (wisely and correctly) objected. The devs know that the real threat point is the player getting BORED of the game during a rental period. Whether that's because he finished the game is incidental.
So what though? It just happens to coincide with satisfying game design, because a game that's too easy doesn't feel good to make progress in,
Also, we're just talking about games being hard now, not about NES games supposedly controlling bad, which is a whole other topic.
It's an objective fact that the NA version of Battletoads is significantly harder than the JP version. I couldn't lose in the JP version of Clinger Winger if I tried.
It all depends on how long it takes to memorize it / your level of familiarity.
For instance: i know the tubo tunnel by heart and can have fun playing it, but i just got to the giant tower maze in golgo 13 today and i'm fuking fuming. You can brute force most things in games if you have the willpower. That's the real challenge
I don't think every game needs to be challenging. I don't think anyone actually wants a fricking Dora the Explorer game to be challenging to those above the age of 5
I don't mind a game being challenging (I've beaten Ghosts n' Goblins, Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels, Adventure Island, and Ninja Gaiden all on original hardware) but this game is just unfair. So much RNG bullshit, I just can't have any fun playing it.
I played some of this but didn't make it past stage 3 I think, it didn't seem that bad at first but I'll take your word for the RNG and the punishment for dying and losing all your power ups makes a huge difference
As a kid with a NES I was never able to beat most of the games I owned and rented. Super Mario Bros 2 (USA) ended up being my favorite and most played game because it sat right in the sweet spot of challenge for me.
You'll notice that most relatively hard games are actually very short if you never die. Hell, Castlevania can be beaten in 20 minutes if you never die. Imagine paying full price for a new game and being done with it in less time than a tv show episode. The toughest games had to be hard because they were shorter and so people had to spend a decent amount of time playing them. On the other hand you have easier games such as SMB3 but that game has WAY more levels so it could afford not being that hard.
>Imagine paying full price for a new game and being done with it in less time than a tv show episode.
This is exactly what people that were pretty decent at games back then did. It was very common to beat a game just a few hours after you bought it if you had already beaten dozens of games before. "Hard games" on the NES typically weren't THAT hard.
I mean SoR4 came out in 2020 and I beat it the night I got it. And now I’ve put hundreds of hours into it. I’ve done the same with lots of other old beat em ups. Some games are just fun to play. I honestly think it’s more of a modern way of thinking to see a game as “I need to see all the cutscenes and then I’m done with it” or whatever.
Also, in general pretty much everything that wasn’t an RPG or a point n’ click or whatever was that short whether or not it’s hard. Shinobi III is easy as hell, like 30 minutes long and widely beloved. SMB 3 can be beat in a flash and we just… did that over and over again.
It definitely needed to be long enough to be fun to sit down and play—I feel like I would have felt differently about a 5 minute long game—but in general 30 or 40 minutes was plenty
>SMB 3 can be beat in a flash
I dunno. If you don't use the warp whistles it's one of the longest, if not the longest NES game in the action/platformer categories. Definitely at least three hours on your first playthrough
Yeah. That's why when I beat it again with a few friends about decade ago, passing the controller when we died, we didn't use them so we could see every world.
I've only beat SMB3 passing the control around with friends. I think the first time it took us 7ish hours? I know we played till 6am but forget when we started. Then in university my roommate and I beat it in 4-5 hours. That game is so fricking good, especially if you're sitting down to beat it fully.
>SoR4
My brother from another mother, I love it so much. I agree that 30 or 40 minutes is plenty for a good game, in fact I think SoR4's campaign is actually about 20% too long. I beat Super Mario Bros 2 and 3 over and over as a kid, it was a joy to zip through the levels and get better every time and still feel energized when the credits rolled because they didn't overstay their welcome.
>I honestly think it’s more of a modern way of thinking to see a game as “I need to see all the cutscenes and then I’m done with it” or whatever.
Absolutely. Zoomies see games as interactive semi-passive entertainment, like a movie or a book where they get to self insert and "be" the protagonist. They don't want to replay it for a while, they don't want it to be challenging, and they don't want it to be "too short" for the money they paid. The idea of playing a game because the game is actually fun to play just seems like a foreign concept to them, they play it (or watch someone else play it) to EXPERIENCE the game. After they've experienced it the game is over and they might pick it back up to reexperience it some years later like they would with a movie or a book. But playing it over and over because the game is fun to play just isn't a thing anymore.
You don't read a book because the act of reading it is fun in itself, people don't read a page of a book and go "wow, reading that page was really fun, I'm going to do it again right now because it was so fun". It's the act of HAVING experienced the book that brings entertainment, the familiarity with the content you now have. Not the actual act of reading it, which is why people generally don't reread the same book multiple times in a row.
Zoomers think of video games the same way. Once they've beaten the game, they've experienced it, and they see no point in reexperiencing it until it's been years and they've forgotten so much of the game they want to refresh their memory.
>Imagine paying full price for a new game and being done with it in less time than a tv show episode.
Imagine paying 15-20 bucks for a DVD when you could watch a newer movie for 7 bucks on cinema
Imagine paying 7 bucks for cinema when you could just watch movies for free on TV
or, to be more accurate with your type of comparison, imagine paying 15-20 bucks for a 1h30 DVD when you could buy a 300 pages book for 7 bucks that will last 20 times more
Your comparison is dumb, and it doesn't realize that it was an understood and accepted standard so nobody saw it that way.
Finally, thinking you can beat Castlevania in "20 mins" is on the level of a zoomer looking at a """longplay""" on youtube, not realizing that's a TAS, and applying modern logic to an old thing thinking all that matters is "the amount of """content"""" and not "spending all the time it takes to get good until you're good enough to beat it in half an hour".
They're not. You just think they are coz you abuse save states and try to play them in one go. You're meant to play them daily for several weeks and build up skill.
That and you're probably playing them on terrible modern TV's with lots of input lag.
moronic zoomer. It's been posted a million times but there's an interview with Iwata (programmer during the famicom era) where he explains why those games were hard.
This is the most stupid and most wrong opinion I've heard read on /vr/.
NES games as a whole have some of the most fuild controls ever, you have zero input lag inherent to the games, zero input lag inherent to the hardware, and character animations have few and fast frames so the action is as direct as possible.
Even SNES games in comparison have more lalency between the moment you press the button and the moment the action happens, because code wise while on NES the standard was just to read the input RAW, for some forsaken reasons on SNES the standard was to make copies of copies of copies of the input and read each of those copies for different actions; which depending on how that's handled by the programmers, lead to native latency. Then you start having longer animations too, wind up animations, increasing the moment between the button is pressed and the key frames, the moment the actions register as "done" for the player.
Just compare TMNT2 and 3 on NES with Turtles in Times on SNES and HH on Megadrive. The most fluid are 2 and 3, then comes HH, TiT is last by far.
Then these things got worse in the next generation (the worst case being the Saturn which has input lag inherent to the hardware), and in the generation after that the standard for animations was to add as many frames as possible "just because they could" which also increases the feeling of latency. Then the next generations after that dubbed down on that because they realized it was dumb, but introduced LCD screens and I don't need to explain that one.
Tl;dr there never was controls as fuild as on NES.
Using that many letters to explain latency, just load up fricking Castlevania and try to jump.
Shit controls where you can't control your character easily were sort of a standard at the time.
>just load up fricking Castlevania and try to jump.
What is your point exactly? The jump is perfect in Castlevania, you press the button and it's instantaneous, zero input delay, no long ass wind up animation and the key frame comes fast.
Also considering that the jump distance and arc is always the same in Castlevania, it should be the easiest thing to learn and master, I'm sorry you have trouble learning something so simple.
How can one fail a jump in Castlevania when the jump is always the same?
>The jump is perfect in Castlevania
No, it's not. You can only do arc jump while you're moving, if you stand still and jump, you're locked in one position. You can't jump on ladders and if you fall from them, you can't fix your position.
That may cause accidents during gameplay and of course, doesn't count as "fluid controls".
Another example is Mega Man. His jump is heavy and Capcom didn't do anything to fix this for 6 games straight.
You can learn and master it, sure, but it's not fluid.
> What is your point exactly?
Shit controls where you can't control your character easily were sort of a standard at the time.
>Another example is Mega Man. His jump is heavy and Capcom didn't do anything to fix this for 6 games straight.
atrocious controls. people still make excuses for it current year.
You're basically arguing that every game should have the same standardized physics and move options. Nice modern gaming zoomer mentality you have there, this is one of the main reasons why modern games suck so much, because everything plays the same. Castlevania does not need more jumps possibility because the platforming elements are minimal at best, the game is a clone of Ghost'n Goblins where the main focus is moving on straight lines and killing stuff, like beat em ups or hack&slash.
2 years ago
Anonymous
> You're basically arguing that every game should have the same standardized physics and move options. Nice modern gaming zoomer mentality you have there
Well, I guess gaming mag people in 80s who made review scores based on the quality of game's controls were also zoomers.
absolutely based
[...] >Not him, but frick, you're an idiot.
No, you're the idiot who doesn't understand games or hardware or anything but your own subjective experience. >just load up fricking Castlevania and try to jump.
Castlevania is not representative of NES games, so bringing it up as an example is already moronic. And the other anon is right, the controls fit the game just fine. CV isn't perfect but the jump isn't a problem. >[...] >then tell me NES ones feel better.
muh feels
you know what feels good? Mastering a game with good controls, like Castlevania 1.
> Castlevania is not representative of NES games
It's literally one of the best NES titles that define the console, the frick you're talking about
Using Castlevania as an argument is moronic because that game controls like that intentionally. There are plenty of NES games with fluid jumping controls like Mario, Mega Man, and Ninja Gaiden. Ninja Gaiden especially controls like butter and is still hard as shit.
> it's all part of the experience!!!
That's not an excuse.
And there's already another example, Mega Man. Want some more? Donkey Kong, Mario Bros (original arcade), Ice Climber, even Zelda II are all stiff and feel janky.
Before you go "muh early games show some respect!!" I'll remind you that the point was to object the statement "NES games had most fluid controls ever". They definitely hadn't but that was a standard at the time because few devs were experienced enough to know how to make it better.
Maybe like 5% of the library had perfectly balanced control scheme, including all Marios, Metroid, first Zelda and some third-party games.
That's the point, you fricking single braincell downlets.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>It's literally one of the best NES titles that define the console, the frick you're talking about
I'm talking about you being too stupid to understand what "representative" means in the context of controls. There are dozens of quality games for the NES and most of them don't have a control scheme exactly like CV, because most of those games aren't designed to filter morons like you the way Castlevania is.
>gaming mag people
have always been moronic that's not news, and citing them undermines what little credibility you had in the first place. >And there's already another example, Mega Man.
Mega Man has great controls. Now you're just revealing that you don't actually know anything about anything and are just parroting memes. >I'll remind you that the point was to object the statement "NES games had most fluid controls ever"
Yeah and you responded with some of the dumbest fricking objections imaginable. Maybe that guy made a careless and incorrect exaggeration. No one will ever know because you barged in posting dumb meme shit about the control schemes in classic games like Castlevania and Mega Man. I might actually have been interested in a serious attempt to contradict his claim. Yours is not serious, it's just moronic and you should frick off before you embarrass yourself further.
2 years ago
Anonymous
The first Mega Man is the only one with control issues because of how slippery it feels. The rest control great so I have no idea what the frick you're talking about.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Zelda II >stiff and janky
arguing with Mario, Zelda and the list goes on
I already attempted communication, I have nothing more to say than you should stop playing NES games because you don't deserve them
2 years ago
Anonymous
Way to completely strawman me and just intentionally misconstrue what I said as much as possible. I'm not even going to bother forming an argument for you, this was an absolute brainworms moron post and 0 thought went into anything you said.
Go back to Wrong board, you'll fit in better there.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Zelda II >stiff and janky
arguing with Mario, Zelda and the list goes on
I already attempted communication, I have nothing more to say than you should stop playing NES games because you don't deserve them
>It's literally one of the best NES titles that define the console, the frick you're talking about
I'm talking about you being too stupid to understand what "representative" means in the context of controls. There are dozens of quality games for the NES and most of them don't have a control scheme exactly like CV, because most of those games aren't designed to filter morons like you the way Castlevania is.
>gaming mag people
have always been moronic that's not news, and citing them undermines what little credibility you had in the first place. >And there's already another example, Mega Man.
Mega Man has great controls. Now you're just revealing that you don't actually know anything about anything and are just parroting memes. >I'll remind you that the point was to object the statement "NES games had most fluid controls ever"
Yeah and you responded with some of the dumbest fricking objections imaginable. Maybe that guy made a careless and incorrect exaggeration. No one will ever know because you barged in posting dumb meme shit about the control schemes in classic games like Castlevania and Mega Man. I might actually have been interested in a serious attempt to contradict his claim. Yours is not serious, it's just moronic and you should frick off before you embarrass yourself further.
> you're wrong simply because i'm right ahaha moron strawman arguments zoomer go back
Literally every discussion on this board always gets to this. Just a brainless ping pong of "i'm correct because i said so"
Honestly i can try this all day but what for, be happy in your little world.
2 years ago
Anonymous
> you're wrong simply because i'm right ahaha moron strawman arguments zoomer go back
That's only what you tell yourself by omitting the discussion on purpose
2 years ago
Anonymous
[...]
[...]
> you're wrong simply because i'm right ahaha moron strawman arguments zoomer go back
Literally every discussion on this board always gets to this. Just a brainless ping pong of "i'm correct because i said so"
Honestly i can try this all day but what for, be happy in your little world.
With that said claiming that Zelda 2 controls are "stiff" is just plain wrong, Link's physics in this game are all about inertia, which is the exact opposite of stiff. Inertia, one way or another, was all over controls and physics in that period of time because it's what devs believed added realism and depth (rightfully so).
You got filtered because the game requires a little bit of learning since it doesn't have the standardized controls every modern game have (including modern "retro" games, every 2D action game plays more or less the same now, one game may have one wall sliding while the other has double jump, but it's still always more or less the same physics) and the only thing you had to say was "old game = bad = stiff controls" without even thinking about it.
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Inertia, one way or another, was all over controls and physics in that period of time
Admitedly that lead to misguided additions at times, like Mega Man 1's sliding, but that's still the exact opposite of "stiff" and "heavy" so you're still plain wrong.
2 years ago
Anonymous
Yes I suppose when you keep having schizoid meltdowns about Castlevania while ignoring every single example of games with fluid controls thrown at you, you can win any argument
2 years ago
Anonymous
You can't just say "most NES games control bad" as if that's some kind of fact.
Define what you even mean by bad controls, firstly, because the fact that you can't manoeuvre in the air in Castlevania ,for example, would be considered a feature by many people, not a flaw. Why should a regular human infiltrating Draculas Castle be able to change direction mid-jump like Mario?
2 years ago
Anonymous
>the fact that you can't manoeuvre in the air in Castlevania ,for example, would be considered a feature by many people
It is defnitely an intended design choice, The Goonies, also released by Konami except half a year before Castlevania, has two horizontal jump options, vs Castlevania only having one. The difference is, The Goonies is actually platform-heavy.
But let's be honest here, the main reason why the jump in Castlevania is the way it is a clone of Ghost'n'Goblins.
2 years ago
Anonymous
If you're just going to farm (You)s with shitty baits instead of contributing to the discussion I've heard >>>Ganker is a really good place to do that
2 years ago
Anonymous
i agree completely on the bogeymanners but frankly you are kinda dumb if you think that at least the popular nes games control like shit
i mean i can see them taking time to get used to compared to snes but once ya do, you have a lot of control over your character, just gotta execute
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Mega Man. Want some more? Donkey Kong, Mario Bros (original arcade), Ice Climber, even Zelda II are all stiff and feel janky.
No. Not particularly.
Oddworld feels stiff and janky (by design, mind you).
2 years ago
Anonymous
>Mega Man
What? Mega Man controls really smooth on the NES, moreso 3-6 and that became the basis for the controls of all sidescrolling subseries and sequels. Zero in MMZ controls just how Mega Man controls in 3-6 in regards to his jumping response.
2 years ago
Anonymous
The weird in retrospect jumping doesn't break the game, moron. The only one you kind of have a point on is ice climber, where you can barely move a single tile horizontally in a jump, but everything else you listed works fine 40 years later. Can you not comprehend that that's the way said games were designed? It was deliberately programmed for you not to be able to change your direction in midair in castlevania. Those are the rules. They gel with the level designs and enemy patterns. And the biggest giveaway that you're full of shit is how you pulled metroid out of your ass when that games has controls not at all conducive to the level environments. I think the main sticking point here, though, is that you're bad at games
>You can only do arc jump while you're moving, if you stand still and jump, you're locked in one position. You can't jump on ladders and if you fall from them, you can't fix your position.
Perfection
> You're basically arguing that every game should have the same standardized physics and move options. Nice modern gaming zoomer mentality you have there
Well, I guess gaming mag people in 80s who made review scores based on the quality of game's controls were also zoomers.
[...] > Castlevania is not representative of NES games
It's literally one of the best NES titles that define the console, the frick you're talking about
[...] > it's all part of the experience!!!
That's not an excuse.
And there's already another example, Mega Man. Want some more? Donkey Kong, Mario Bros (original arcade), Ice Climber, even Zelda II are all stiff and feel janky.
Before you go "muh early games show some respect!!" I'll remind you that the point was to object the statement "NES games had most fluid controls ever". They definitely hadn't but that was a standard at the time because few devs were experienced enough to know how to make it better.
Maybe like 5% of the library had perfectly balanced control scheme, including all Marios, Metroid, first Zelda and some third-party games.
That's the point, you fricking single braincell downlets.
>"NES games had most fluid controls ever"
True
https://i.imgur.com/aCnGTDT.jpg
How do you feel about most NES games being tough as nails?
>How do you feel about most NES games being tough as nails?
I love it. It's one of many features that make the NES library the best collection of action games in existence
homie just go play NES Castlevanias and then IV or Rondo of Blood and then tell me NES ones feel better. There are NES games with great controls but most of them are shit
> Rondo of Blood and then tell me NES ones feel better
They do. Rondo of Blood jumps are identical to NES,, except they added the possibility to turn around while jumping, as well as a small fixed arc if you decide to move while jumping straight (neither thing having much uses). The main difference though is Rondo has some latency which there isn't on NES. This is using all possible run ahead function, pressing the jump button at the same time, on NES you're already in the air, but not in Rondo due to latency + wind up animation. There really aren't more direct controls than on NES, as I said, you press the button, shit happens, no bullshit.
Using Castlevania as an argument is moronic because that game controls like that intentionally. There are plenty of NES games with fluid jumping controls like Mario, Mega Man, and Ninja Gaiden. Ninja Gaiden especially controls like butter and is still hard as shit.
all video game systems have inherent input lag of 1 frame minimum. Cps2 and neo geo arcade boards have 3-4 frames. Never heard anything about saturn having bad input lag?
yeah, but NES has less*, which on top of short fast animations makes gameplay of action games really tight. I love Metal Slug but damn gameplay feels so awkward, like the player is always behind due to latency and animation work. Contra on NES doesn't feel that way, it's a lot more responsive.
Using that many letters to explain latency, just load up fricking Castlevania and try to jump.
Shit controls where you can't control your character easily were sort of a standard at the time.
>Not him, but frick, you're an idiot.
No, you're the idiot who doesn't understand games or hardware or anything but your own subjective experience. >just load up fricking Castlevania and try to jump.
Castlevania is not representative of NES games, so bringing it up as an example is already moronic. And the other anon is right, the controls fit the game just fine. CV isn't perfect but the jump isn't a problem. >
homie just go play NES Castlevanias and then IV or Rondo of Blood and then tell me NES ones feel better. There are NES games with great controls but most of them are shit
>then tell me NES ones feel better.
muh feels
you know what feels good? Mastering a game with good controls, like Castlevania 1.
> Saturn which has input lag inherent to the hardware
Absolute nonsense, there is no inherent input lag, you could easily code a game with the exact same input lag as NES game. However, it is true that the typical Saturn game had more lag. There are two reasons. One is lower frame rate, a 30fps game of course has more lag. The other is if the game runs the sprite rendering in parallel to the game code. This would be done to maximize rendering time.
No? precise controls aren't specific to any era. Why do you people say this dumb shit? >duuh, I played Castlevania once, and going up stairs was kind of fiddly
Is basically what this criticism amounts to, isn't it?
Go and play any cinematic platformer, which is a genre that peaked around the Playstation. Far stiffer feeling than most NES games, and that's by design.
Go and play early 3D games like Megaman Legends, and then tell me Mario controls "jank".
moron.
I was too young so I didn't have to deal with any of that. The only NES games I played at home before SNES were the SMB trilogy and the only one I could beat was SMB2. I tried Master Blaster at a friend's house and didn't understand how to progress.
When I go back and start getting deep into emulation I have a list of many NES games to try.
I have beaten 190 NES/Famicom games (no savestates, sadly I need to precise that) and the vast majority of them aren't hard.
The last world in kung fu Heroes, specifically the last level, were hard.
The last world in Adventure Island is hell. I still haven't beaten that.
Puzzle games like Fire'n Ice filter me now, but as a kid I would have rocked those type of games, my brain just melted since then.
Some SHMUPs filter me as well but I suck at the genre.
That's all I have considered actually hard so far.
>Adventure Island
that game is just painful in later areas.
>just load up fricking Castlevania and try to jump.
What is your point exactly? The jump is perfect in Castlevania, you press the button and it's instantaneous, zero input delay, no long ass wind up animation and the key frame comes fast.
Also considering that the jump distance and arc is always the same in Castlevania, it should be the easiest thing to learn and master, I'm sorry you have trouble learning something so simple.
How can one fail a jump in Castlevania when the jump is always the same?
>The jump is perfect in Castlevania
if you believe that then you probably think tmnt on nes is well programmed and totally bug free.
>Fire'n Ice
My dude, that's my favorite puzzle game of all time, I beat it with only watching two solution videos. I very rarely beat games anymore but that one hooked me hard from start to finish.
I like reasonable challenge. Game can be hard but it should allow me to keep trying, learn and eventually find the winning pattern.
But the trick is that everybody decide for themselves what's "reasonable" and what's not. People have different capabilities.
I wouldn't be able to beat OP pic no matter how many times I would try.
I don't like games with difficulty walls that won't let me past them because my skill is can't get any higher.
At home. I believe that a game should challenge you. To beat a game one must possess skill, strategy, make correct decisions,, hell even a little bit of luck, but at least something. Modern games have progression built in which is boring to me. you may as well watch a movie (now both mediums are rife with israelite propaganda). The NES is the antithesis to this.
I spent more time tryna kill dracula than the entire rest of Castlevania. Return of the Joker is among my favorite NES games, but the only reason i can beat it easily is because having the right weapon for the right boss just rips it apart.
>confession:
I've never been able to beat contra solo or without the 30 lives. to this day it is really one of the hardest games to avoid using a continue for me
I really wanna beat Silver Surfer in one sitting because I love the music to death, but i always predict it is gonna take me forever so i just grind 1 level at a time turn off the game
I had the most trouble with them for the longest time too. You're invicible when laying on the floor, the only thing that can get you are the barrel that roll on the floor, which you have ample time to shoot at. Just stay low, take your time, get up when it's safe.
Get the spread gun and memorize enemy patterns. It's not hard as long as you have the spread gun. I think most people think it's hard because they use the konami code and keep losing the spread gun
TMNT 1 (original NES) is almost impossible without save states because literally everything off screen will hit you if you jump or walk forward and you have no way to see it unless you move forward.
If anything, those games are fair, compared to platforms like Amiga, where there was no expectation that the player should even be able to beat the game.
I think a big reason why people think these games are so fricking hard is because they try to play them now on shitty LCD screens with a truckload of input lag
Like sure there are definitely some challenging NES games but as far as the majority goes they're no more difficult than today's Hollow Knights or what have you
I think it has more to do with the fact that zoomers have extremely minimal experience with this type of game, and their insistence on just savestating their way through them means they never actually get any real experience with them either.
They also probably don't have the manuals. Those make a big difference.
This is really true. I found myself playing older games and forgetting how essential the manual was for them. Once I remembered that, reading the manual before playing makes for a much more enjoyable play-through.
As someone who plays on a CRT this is completely false nowadays, this isn't 2010. Modern high quality 144hz displays add negligible input lag. The emulator is going to add more input lag than the monitor is, and even then thats not anywhere near as big of an issue as it once was - nestopia iirc adds only a frame of input lag these days and that's without setting frameskip, you can just set 1 frame of it and have no input lag at all.
No, games were hard back then because if they went out of their way to frick over the player they couldn't clear the game on an overnight rental. It cost too much to make games bigger/longer but cost nothing at all to limit continues, add blind jumps over pits, and cut back on power ups and extra lives in order to prolong the games experience.
You're seriously exaggerating how many games have things like blind jumps over pits.
It's just cope, taking a few select cases and applying them as a general rule so he can feel better about his ineffiency at getting good. Just like "it's hard because rentals", only a few select things can really be blamed on that. Genuinely believing that the entire industry was out to "frick with players", in a post crash era mind you, is really fricking dumb.
>I was paranoid about game rentals and kids beating the game over the weekend. So... I... uh... made it hard.
I didn't realize this guy was responsible for every 8-bit and 16-bit console game, quite a feat really.
Right he was the only one in the entire industry worried about rentals.
Meanwhile disney licensed games:
>Westwood co-founder Louis Castle even apologized to fans during a “Devs Play” video with Double Fine Productions: “The reason we had to do it was because the rental market was that if people got a certain distance in the game, metrics from Disney said they wouldn’t buy the game.”
Have you noticed both your examples come from western games from an era where a good western game on consoles were the exception?
Only western decs did this
Then explain contra 3, ninja gaiden 3, castlevania 3 and many others. They removed checkpoints and powerups, limited or removed continues and increased enemy damage in numerous japanese games when porting them to the western rental dominated market. Dynamite Headdy was most aggressive of all, just saying “frick your continues, go buy the game”.
With battletoads the western one was built to frick over rental market from the start, and then when it came time for a japanese release they slowed down the difficult stages and gave out 5 lives and 5 continues making it a far more merciful experience since japan didn't have the rental industry problem.
>Explain these
Konami of America, Tecmo America and Konami of America. Funny word they all coincide with.
Your argument is flawed because it considers rentals being in the center of everything. Rentals weren't nearly as huge in Europe as in the US, and yet Battletoads was the same in Europe as in the US (British devs remember), as for Castlevania 3 it was still harder in Europe than in Japan
On the other side, there are also tons of dev interviews which explain that in the west, players were actually looking for a challenge, while in Japan the majority of players were more casual. This is also corroborated by the fact that almost every magazine at the time had a rating system that took "longetivity" into account, often basing that on the game's difficulty (Nintendo Power even called it "lasting challenge" for a while, not just how long the game was, but how challenging it was), therefore the harder the game is = the higher the score. Japanese magazines didn't have that.
This is easy to forget these days since the mentality is not the same anymore, especially since the Wii era. It's even harder to fathom to zoomers who never knew this mentality.
"Rentals" are only a tiny bit of the explanation on game's difficulty, sure there are some cases of changing a mechanic here and there; but even without rentals the experience would have been mostly the same.
P.S: ninja gaiden 3 US is still a lot easier than NG1/2; and in the Japanese version they made it so easy you can literally just tank hits against bosses and spam the attack button and come out a winner. That's not how an action game is supposed to work. They made it easier for the Japanese audiance, who didn't care for action games as much, not the other way around.
>Rentals weren't nearly as huge in Europe as in the US, and yet Battletoads was the same in Europe as in the US (British devs remember), as for Castlevania 3 it was still harder in Europe than in Japan
They were not going to make a new version of the game for all 8 people in englandland who owned the NES. You get americas sloppy seconds, PALified and you were grateful for it.
>They were not going to make a new version of the game for all 8 people in englandland who owned the NES.
Now you're saying even more stupid things to try back up the first stupid thing. The PAL NES market was fricking huge. According to wikipedia numbers, it was about 50-50 NES/SEGA in all Europe, the problem being those numbers are not reliable (only "source" is some magazine article from the 90's which itself says those numbers are estimates), from my experience it was 80-20 for NES but I'm willing to give those numbers a doubt and perhaps it was the other way around in East Europe (where Nintendo of Europe took a while to establish itself, there being less money to be made there) thus making it 50-50 overall for Europe. Point is it was huge.
Yeah it happened, but those were exceptions, not the norm. The Lion King is precisely known for its insane difficulty, meaning it's known for being an exception in that regard. If every game was like that, you wouldn't be talking about The Lion King.
Lion King isn't known for insane difficulty, it's known for having a moronicly bullshit second level that takes a billion tries to figure out. It's not too bad outside of that one level.
Lion King is mostly talked about because Disney's 2D movies were a phenomenon at the time and it was released on both major consoles, so a lot of kids either owned or rented it. That's also probably why so many people remember it being harder than it was.
The developer in an interview literally explained how disney was worried about rentals and demanded the game be harder. The developer countered that it was a kids game and Disney said they would not get paid if they didn't comply.
Yeah but they tweaked one level to be slightly obnoxious it's nowhere near "insane difficulty."
rentals were huge but no dev was moronic enough to design a game specifically to frick over rentals. If your game was good enough to be a popular rental, it was going to sell more also. You certainly weren't going to frick over actual primary sales customers in order to thwart rentals. Nobody would have been that fricking stupid. But it was a good enough bait to get me to reply so enjoy the you.
and yet it happened.
>Most gamers, whether they've played it or not, know that The Lion King is hard, but what most people don't know is that the developers made the game extremely difficult on purpose. Disney actually told the developers to make the game so difficult that people wouldn't be able to beat it during a rental period. The game came out when rental stores were immensely popular, and Disney didn't want people to get more than halfway through the game so that the chances of them buying it would be higher. The developers disagreed with Disney's decision, but went back and tweaked the levels to make things more difficult even though the game targeted a younger audience.
it is the same with Bayou Billy btw, it is known for being ---exceptionally- hard
That game was the worst offender. The following changes were done to make the American version more difficult:
>Enemies in the beat-em-up stages move faster, deal twice as much damage, and take twice as many hits to kill.
>The amount of bullets started with in the shooting stages, normally 150/100 in Mad City, has been cut down to 50/100.
>There is less fuel for the buggy in the driving stages. It also takes a single hit to destroy, when it had a health bar in Mad City and takes visible damage in the form of losing the top.
Konami seemed the most concerned over the rental market, as they did this in many other games of that era besides bayou billy but not quite as aggressive.
>That game was the worst offender.
> they did this in many other games of that era besides bayou billy but not quite as aggressive.
Because Bayou Billy was literally they first time they did it.
They also made the driving stages much longer and more involving, which is a good thing.
Also Mad City is honestly way too easy for its own good, Bayou Billy is a much more fun experience.
Maybe that happened, it certainly makes for a good game journo story on a slow day.
But even then it was fricking Disney-- what the frick did they know about videogame marketing in the 90s? They were coming from a Movie israelite mindset and didn't know jack shit. Your comment even says the developer (wisely and correctly) objected. The devs know that the real threat point is the player getting BORED of the game during a rental period. Whether that's because he finished the game is incidental.
So what though? It just happens to coincide with satisfying game design, because a game that's too easy doesn't feel good to make progress in,
Also, we're just talking about games being hard now, not about NES games supposedly controlling bad, which is a whole other topic.
It's an objective fact that the NA version of Battletoads is significantly harder than the JP version. I couldn't lose in the JP version of Clinger Winger if I tried.
Ideally you shouldn’t be able to beat any action game on your first couple of tries. More modern games should use a lives/continues system.
It all depends on how long it takes to memorize it / your level of familiarity.
For instance: i know the tubo tunnel by heart and can have fun playing it, but i just got to the giant tower maze in golgo 13 today and i'm fuking fuming. You can brute force most things in games if you have the willpower. That's the real challenge
Fine. Games should have some challenge to them.
I don't think every game needs to be challenging. I don't think anyone actually wants a fricking Dora the Explorer game to be challenging to those above the age of 5
I don't mind a game being challenging (I've beaten Ghosts n' Goblins, Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels, Adventure Island, and Ninja Gaiden all on original hardware) but this game is just unfair. So much RNG bullshit, I just can't have any fun playing it.
I played some of this but didn't make it past stage 3 I think, it didn't seem that bad at first but I'll take your word for the RNG and the punishment for dying and losing all your power ups makes a huge difference
As a kid with a NES I was never able to beat most of the games I owned and rented. Super Mario Bros 2 (USA) ended up being my favorite and most played game because it sat right in the sweet spot of challenge for me.
It's because people didn't buy as many back then so they played the same ones over and over more than now
They're not all that tough and I think a few Sega Genesis way were more difficult than these
You'll notice that most relatively hard games are actually very short if you never die. Hell, Castlevania can be beaten in 20 minutes if you never die. Imagine paying full price for a new game and being done with it in less time than a tv show episode. The toughest games had to be hard because they were shorter and so people had to spend a decent amount of time playing them. On the other hand you have easier games such as SMB3 but that game has WAY more levels so it could afford not being that hard.
>Imagine paying full price for a new game and being done with it in less time than a tv show episode.
This is exactly what people that were pretty decent at games back then did. It was very common to beat a game just a few hours after you bought it if you had already beaten dozens of games before. "Hard games" on the NES typically weren't THAT hard.
I mean SoR4 came out in 2020 and I beat it the night I got it. And now I’ve put hundreds of hours into it. I’ve done the same with lots of other old beat em ups. Some games are just fun to play. I honestly think it’s more of a modern way of thinking to see a game as “I need to see all the cutscenes and then I’m done with it” or whatever.
Also, in general pretty much everything that wasn’t an RPG or a point n’ click or whatever was that short whether or not it’s hard. Shinobi III is easy as hell, like 30 minutes long and widely beloved. SMB 3 can be beat in a flash and we just… did that over and over again.
It definitely needed to be long enough to be fun to sit down and play—I feel like I would have felt differently about a 5 minute long game—but in general 30 or 40 minutes was plenty
>SMB 3 can be beat in a flash
I dunno. If you don't use the warp whistles it's one of the longest, if not the longest NES game in the action/platformer categories. Definitely at least three hours on your first playthrough
Yeah but as eight year olds we used the whistle every time
Yeah. That's why when I beat it again with a few friends about decade ago, passing the controller when we died, we didn't use them so we could see every world.
I've only beat SMB3 passing the control around with friends. I think the first time it took us 7ish hours? I know we played till 6am but forget when we started. Then in university my roommate and I beat it in 4-5 hours. That game is so fricking good, especially if you're sitting down to beat it fully.
>SoR4
My brother from another mother, I love it so much. I agree that 30 or 40 minutes is plenty for a good game, in fact I think SoR4's campaign is actually about 20% too long. I beat Super Mario Bros 2 and 3 over and over as a kid, it was a joy to zip through the levels and get better every time and still feel energized when the credits rolled because they didn't overstay their welcome.
>I honestly think it’s more of a modern way of thinking to see a game as “I need to see all the cutscenes and then I’m done with it” or whatever.
Absolutely. Zoomies see games as interactive semi-passive entertainment, like a movie or a book where they get to self insert and "be" the protagonist. They don't want to replay it for a while, they don't want it to be challenging, and they don't want it to be "too short" for the money they paid. The idea of playing a game because the game is actually fun to play just seems like a foreign concept to them, they play it (or watch someone else play it) to EXPERIENCE the game. After they've experienced it the game is over and they might pick it back up to reexperience it some years later like they would with a movie or a book. But playing it over and over because the game is fun to play just isn't a thing anymore.
>The idea of playing a game because the game is actually fun to play just seems like a foreign concept to them
no it doesn't lmao
m8, any leisure activity that isn't work is done for the sake of fun
You don't read a book because the act of reading it is fun in itself, people don't read a page of a book and go "wow, reading that page was really fun, I'm going to do it again right now because it was so fun". It's the act of HAVING experienced the book that brings entertainment, the familiarity with the content you now have. Not the actual act of reading it, which is why people generally don't reread the same book multiple times in a row.
Zoomers think of video games the same way. Once they've beaten the game, they've experienced it, and they see no point in reexperiencing it until it's been years and they've forgotten so much of the game they want to refresh their memory.
Have you ever spoken to anyone under the age of 25 that doesn't exist entirely in your head or a YouTube comment section
>regularly talking to kids
>reading comprehension
People like this exist but it's not a zoomer thing.
There is no logic in this post. Just a complete lack of critical thinking or common sense.
Dumb zoomzoom.
Predictable response
>Imagine paying full price for a new game and being done with it in less time than a tv show episode.
Imagine paying 15-20 bucks for a DVD when you could watch a newer movie for 7 bucks on cinema
Imagine paying 7 bucks for cinema when you could just watch movies for free on TV
or, to be more accurate with your type of comparison, imagine paying 15-20 bucks for a 1h30 DVD when you could buy a 300 pages book for 7 bucks that will last 20 times more
Your comparison is dumb, and it doesn't realize that it was an understood and accepted standard so nobody saw it that way.
Finally, thinking you can beat Castlevania in "20 mins" is on the level of a zoomer looking at a """longplay""" on youtube, not realizing that's a TAS, and applying modern logic to an old thing thinking all that matters is "the amount of """content"""" and not "spending all the time it takes to get good until you're good enough to beat it in half an hour".
If a game was fun I'd play it again.
to this i have way more trouble beating mario 3 than ninja gaiden or any of the castlevania games
They're not. You just think they are coz you abuse save states and try to play them in one go. You're meant to play them daily for several weeks and build up skill.
That and you're probably playing them on terrible modern TV's with lots of input lag.
moronic zoomer. It's been posted a million times but there's an interview with Iwata (programmer during the famicom era) where he explains why those games were hard.
Most of them are hard because of shit controls. Games didn't have fluid controls until 16 bit consoles
This is the most stupid and most wrong opinion I've heard read on /vr/.
NES games as a whole have some of the most fuild controls ever, you have zero input lag inherent to the games, zero input lag inherent to the hardware, and character animations have few and fast frames so the action is as direct as possible.
Even SNES games in comparison have more lalency between the moment you press the button and the moment the action happens, because code wise while on NES the standard was just to read the input RAW, for some forsaken reasons on SNES the standard was to make copies of copies of copies of the input and read each of those copies for different actions; which depending on how that's handled by the programmers, lead to native latency. Then you start having longer animations too, wind up animations, increasing the moment between the button is pressed and the key frames, the moment the actions register as "done" for the player.
Just compare TMNT2 and 3 on NES with Turtles in Times on SNES and HH on Megadrive. The most fluid are 2 and 3, then comes HH, TiT is last by far.
Then these things got worse in the next generation (the worst case being the Saturn which has input lag inherent to the hardware), and in the generation after that the standard for animations was to add as many frames as possible "just because they could" which also increases the feeling of latency. Then the next generations after that dubbed down on that because they realized it was dumb, but introduced LCD screens and I don't need to explain that one.
Tl;dr there never was controls as fuild as on NES.
Not him, but frick, you're an idiot.
Using that many letters to explain latency, just load up fricking Castlevania and try to jump.
Shit controls where you can't control your character easily were sort of a standard at the time.
>just load up fricking Castlevania and try to jump.
What is your point exactly? The jump is perfect in Castlevania, you press the button and it's instantaneous, zero input delay, no long ass wind up animation and the key frame comes fast.
Also considering that the jump distance and arc is always the same in Castlevania, it should be the easiest thing to learn and master, I'm sorry you have trouble learning something so simple.
How can one fail a jump in Castlevania when the jump is always the same?
>The jump is perfect in Castlevania
No, it's not. You can only do arc jump while you're moving, if you stand still and jump, you're locked in one position. You can't jump on ladders and if you fall from them, you can't fix your position.
That may cause accidents during gameplay and of course, doesn't count as "fluid controls".
Another example is Mega Man. His jump is heavy and Capcom didn't do anything to fix this for 6 games straight.
You can learn and master it, sure, but it's not fluid.
> What is your point exactly?
Shit controls where you can't control your character easily were sort of a standard at the time.
>Another example is Mega Man. His jump is heavy and Capcom didn't do anything to fix this for 6 games straight.
atrocious controls. people still make excuses for it current year.
You're basically arguing that every game should have the same standardized physics and move options. Nice modern gaming zoomer mentality you have there, this is one of the main reasons why modern games suck so much, because everything plays the same. Castlevania does not need more jumps possibility because the platforming elements are minimal at best, the game is a clone of Ghost'n Goblins where the main focus is moving on straight lines and killing stuff, like beat em ups or hack&slash.
> You're basically arguing that every game should have the same standardized physics and move options. Nice modern gaming zoomer mentality you have there
Well, I guess gaming mag people in 80s who made review scores based on the quality of game's controls were also zoomers.
> Castlevania is not representative of NES games
It's literally one of the best NES titles that define the console, the frick you're talking about
> it's all part of the experience!!!
That's not an excuse.
And there's already another example, Mega Man. Want some more? Donkey Kong, Mario Bros (original arcade), Ice Climber, even Zelda II are all stiff and feel janky.
Before you go "muh early games show some respect!!" I'll remind you that the point was to object the statement "NES games had most fluid controls ever". They definitely hadn't but that was a standard at the time because few devs were experienced enough to know how to make it better.
Maybe like 5% of the library had perfectly balanced control scheme, including all Marios, Metroid, first Zelda and some third-party games.
That's the point, you fricking single braincell downlets.
>It's literally one of the best NES titles that define the console, the frick you're talking about
I'm talking about you being too stupid to understand what "representative" means in the context of controls. There are dozens of quality games for the NES and most of them don't have a control scheme exactly like CV, because most of those games aren't designed to filter morons like you the way Castlevania is.
>gaming mag people
have always been moronic that's not news, and citing them undermines what little credibility you had in the first place.
>And there's already another example, Mega Man.
Mega Man has great controls. Now you're just revealing that you don't actually know anything about anything and are just parroting memes.
>I'll remind you that the point was to object the statement "NES games had most fluid controls ever"
Yeah and you responded with some of the dumbest fricking objections imaginable. Maybe that guy made a careless and incorrect exaggeration. No one will ever know because you barged in posting dumb meme shit about the control schemes in classic games like Castlevania and Mega Man. I might actually have been interested in a serious attempt to contradict his claim. Yours is not serious, it's just moronic and you should frick off before you embarrass yourself further.
The first Mega Man is the only one with control issues because of how slippery it feels. The rest control great so I have no idea what the frick you're talking about.
>Zelda II
>stiff and janky
arguing with Mario, Zelda and the list goes on
I already attempted communication, I have nothing more to say than you should stop playing NES games because you don't deserve them
Way to completely strawman me and just intentionally misconstrue what I said as much as possible. I'm not even going to bother forming an argument for you, this was an absolute brainworms moron post and 0 thought went into anything you said.
Go back to Wrong board, you'll fit in better there.
> you're wrong simply because i'm right ahaha moron strawman arguments zoomer go back
Literally every discussion on this board always gets to this. Just a brainless ping pong of "i'm correct because i said so"
Honestly i can try this all day but what for, be happy in your little world.
> you're wrong simply because i'm right ahaha moron strawman arguments zoomer go back
That's only what you tell yourself by omitting the discussion on purpose
With that said claiming that Zelda 2 controls are "stiff" is just plain wrong, Link's physics in this game are all about inertia, which is the exact opposite of stiff. Inertia, one way or another, was all over controls and physics in that period of time because it's what devs believed added realism and depth (rightfully so).
You got filtered because the game requires a little bit of learning since it doesn't have the standardized controls every modern game have (including modern "retro" games, every 2D action game plays more or less the same now, one game may have one wall sliding while the other has double jump, but it's still always more or less the same physics) and the only thing you had to say was "old game = bad = stiff controls" without even thinking about it.
>Inertia, one way or another, was all over controls and physics in that period of time
Admitedly that lead to misguided additions at times, like Mega Man 1's sliding, but that's still the exact opposite of "stiff" and "heavy" so you're still plain wrong.
Yes I suppose when you keep having schizoid meltdowns about Castlevania while ignoring every single example of games with fluid controls thrown at you, you can win any argument
You can't just say "most NES games control bad" as if that's some kind of fact.
Define what you even mean by bad controls, firstly, because the fact that you can't manoeuvre in the air in Castlevania ,for example, would be considered a feature by many people, not a flaw. Why should a regular human infiltrating Draculas Castle be able to change direction mid-jump like Mario?
>the fact that you can't manoeuvre in the air in Castlevania ,for example, would be considered a feature by many people
It is defnitely an intended design choice, The Goonies, also released by Konami except half a year before Castlevania, has two horizontal jump options, vs Castlevania only having one. The difference is, The Goonies is actually platform-heavy.
But let's be honest here, the main reason why the jump in Castlevania is the way it is a clone of Ghost'n'Goblins.
If you're just going to farm (You)s with shitty baits instead of contributing to the discussion I've heard >>>Ganker is a really good place to do that
i agree completely on the bogeymanners but frankly you are kinda dumb if you think that at least the popular nes games control like shit
i mean i can see them taking time to get used to compared to snes but once ya do, you have a lot of control over your character, just gotta execute
>Mega Man. Want some more? Donkey Kong, Mario Bros (original arcade), Ice Climber, even Zelda II are all stiff and feel janky.
No. Not particularly.
Oddworld feels stiff and janky (by design, mind you).
>Mega Man
What? Mega Man controls really smooth on the NES, moreso 3-6 and that became the basis for the controls of all sidescrolling subseries and sequels. Zero in MMZ controls just how Mega Man controls in 3-6 in regards to his jumping response.
The weird in retrospect jumping doesn't break the game, moron. The only one you kind of have a point on is ice climber, where you can barely move a single tile horizontally in a jump, but everything else you listed works fine 40 years later. Can you not comprehend that that's the way said games were designed? It was deliberately programmed for you not to be able to change your direction in midair in castlevania. Those are the rules. They gel with the level designs and enemy patterns. And the biggest giveaway that you're full of shit is how you pulled metroid out of your ass when that games has controls not at all conducive to the level environments. I think the main sticking point here, though, is that you're bad at games
since when is mega man's jump heavy
it's so light they want you to jump from block to block with it
anyone who uses a single word to criticize a platformer's controls is subhuman and should be ignored
i don't mind that but make sure the criticisms make sense
for instance, the first megaman, and to a much lesser extent the second, is slippery
moron
This is literally all good. The game is designed around this. Don’t be a shitter.
>You can only do arc jump while you're moving, if you stand still and jump, you're locked in one position. You can't jump on ladders and if you fall from them, you can't fix your position.
Perfection
>"NES games had most fluid controls ever"
True
>How do you feel about most NES games being tough as nails?
I love it. It's one of many features that make the NES library the best collection of action games in existence
homie just go play NES Castlevanias and then IV or Rondo of Blood and then tell me NES ones feel better. There are NES games with great controls but most of them are shit
> Rondo of Blood and then tell me NES ones feel better
They do. Rondo of Blood jumps are identical to NES,, except they added the possibility to turn around while jumping, as well as a small fixed arc if you decide to move while jumping straight (neither thing having much uses). The main difference though is Rondo has some latency which there isn't on NES. This is using all possible run ahead function, pressing the jump button at the same time, on NES you're already in the air, but not in Rondo due to latency + wind up animation. There really aren't more direct controls than on NES, as I said, you press the button, shit happens, no bullshit.
Using Castlevania as an argument is moronic because that game controls like that intentionally. There are plenty of NES games with fluid jumping controls like Mario, Mega Man, and Ninja Gaiden. Ninja Gaiden especially controls like butter and is still hard as shit.
all video game systems have inherent input lag of 1 frame minimum. Cps2 and neo geo arcade boards have 3-4 frames. Never heard anything about saturn having bad input lag?
yeah, but NES has less*, which on top of short fast animations makes gameplay of action games really tight. I love Metal Slug but damn gameplay feels so awkward, like the player is always behind due to latency and animation work. Contra on NES doesn't feel that way, it's a lot more responsive.
absolutely based
>Not him, but frick, you're an idiot.
No, you're the idiot who doesn't understand games or hardware or anything but your own subjective experience.
>just load up fricking Castlevania and try to jump.
Castlevania is not representative of NES games, so bringing it up as an example is already moronic. And the other anon is right, the controls fit the game just fine. CV isn't perfect but the jump isn't a problem.
>
>then tell me NES ones feel better.
muh feels
you know what feels good? Mastering a game with good controls, like Castlevania 1.
> Saturn which has input lag inherent to the hardware
Absolute nonsense, there is no inherent input lag, you could easily code a game with the exact same input lag as NES game. However, it is true that the typical Saturn game had more lag. There are two reasons. One is lower frame rate, a 30fps game of course has more lag. The other is if the game runs the sprite rendering in parallel to the game code. This would be done to maximize rendering time.
No? precise controls aren't specific to any era. Why do you people say this dumb shit?
>duuh, I played Castlevania once, and going up stairs was kind of fiddly
Is basically what this criticism amounts to, isn't it?
Go and play any cinematic platformer, which is a genre that peaked around the Playstation. Far stiffer feeling than most NES games, and that's by design.
Go and play early 3D games like Megaman Legends, and then tell me Mario controls "jank".
moron.
I think if nails are so tough den whyd we need to invent screws smartguy
I was too young so I didn't have to deal with any of that. The only NES games I played at home before SNES were the SMB trilogy and the only one I could beat was SMB2. I tried Master Blaster at a friend's house and didn't understand how to progress.
When I go back and start getting deep into emulation I have a list of many NES games to try.
I have beaten 190 NES/Famicom games (no savestates, sadly I need to precise that) and the vast majority of them aren't hard.
The last world in kung fu Heroes, specifically the last level, were hard.
The last world in Adventure Island is hell. I still haven't beaten that.
Puzzle games like Fire'n Ice filter me now, but as a kid I would have rocked those type of games, my brain just melted since then.
Some SHMUPs filter me as well but I suck at the genre.
That's all I have considered actually hard so far.
>Adventure Island
that game is just painful in later areas.
>The jump is perfect in Castlevania
if you believe that then you probably think tmnt on nes is well programmed and totally bug free.
Adventure Island controls great. You don't understand game design that doesn't hand you and instantaneous win, and suck your wiener.
>Fire'n Ice
My dude, that's my favorite puzzle game of all time, I beat it with only watching two solution videos. I very rarely beat games anymore but that one hooked me hard from start to finish.
You should try Moai Kun
I like reasonable challenge. Game can be hard but it should allow me to keep trying, learn and eventually find the winning pattern.
But the trick is that everybody decide for themselves what's "reasonable" and what's not. People have different capabilities.
I wouldn't be able to beat OP pic no matter how many times I would try.
I don't like games with difficulty walls that won't let me past them because my skill is can't get any higher.
save states are the only way I'll play certain games, like battletoads
Everybody in this thread is so fricking gay it's unbelievable
Hot sweaty orgy with anons in front of the Nintendo
I feel like they arenas tough as people say. There was a time in my youth where I could pick up and finish just about any game.
It's really just memorization, all the difficulty is in learning patterns and keeping momentum rather than adapting.
Plus Donkey Kong and Mario Bros aren't even NES games. They pre-date the NES, and had some pretty barebones ports to the NES.
At home. I believe that a game should challenge you. To beat a game one must possess skill, strategy, make correct decisions,, hell even a little bit of luck, but at least something. Modern games have progression built in which is boring to me. you may as well watch a movie (now both mediums are rife with israelite propaganda). The NES is the antithesis to this.
i like them
I spent more time tryna kill dracula than the entire rest of Castlevania. Return of the Joker is among my favorite NES games, but the only reason i can beat it easily is because having the right weapon for the right boss just rips it apart.
>confession:
I've never been able to beat contra solo or without the 30 lives. to this day it is really one of the hardest games to avoid using a continue for me
I really wanna beat Silver Surfer in one sitting because I love the music to death, but i always predict it is gonna take me forever so i just grind 1 level at a time turn off the game
>I've never been able to beat contra solo or without the 30 lives
Learn to crouch. Don't pick up crap weapons. That's it.
the indoor levels are what give me trouble
Just duck.
I had the most trouble with them for the longest time too. You're invicible when laying on the floor, the only thing that can get you are the barrel that roll on the floor, which you have ample time to shoot at. Just stay low, take your time, get up when it's safe.
Get the spread gun and memorize enemy patterns. It's not hard as long as you have the spread gun. I think most people think it's hard because they use the konami code and keep losing the spread gun
That's why I liked genesis
TMNT 1 (original NES) is almost impossible without save states because literally everything off screen will hit you if you jump or walk forward and you have no way to see it unless you move forward.
not a fan of it, most of the time the challenge comes from artificial cheapness and/or bad controls rather than an actual skill barrier
they made them too hard to hide the paper thin content