These old school NES games are hard!!!!

[Jumpy]

They upped the difficulty because they couldn't make games with 50 to 100 hours of content like now.

Growing up in the NES era I do find a lot of stuff too easy these days.

I don't get the point in excluding genres known for long playtime, if were talking about games with a lot of hours of gameplay. I also personally wouldn't classify open world games like gta or the batman games as rpgs. Is XCOM an rpg? I wouldn't say so. How about sim city, civilization, heroes of might and magic? Real and turn based strategy games aren't necessarily rpgs.
Roguelikes are similar to old school games difficulty wise, but typically you unlock new characters and scenarios as you go so it's not just the same gameplay over and over.

The second part of your post seems to show you missed the original point I was making. Old school games were hard precisely because they didn't have the tools to put in enough content for long playthroughs.

Anyway your point that most games dont have lengthy gameplay because it's limited to certain genres (and not just rpgs unless you have a very expansive definition of what an rpg is) doesn't really counter my point. I have roughly a couple hundred games, and easily 70℅ of my library is games you could put that kind of time into.

Over all, most games these days don't offer 50 to 100 hours of content. I excluded RPGs and multiplayer games for obvious reasons: AAA single player campaigns in 2the modern era are 10-20 hours long typically. NES/SNES games that had 50+ hour campaigns, by virtue of being "offline," due to the era, were strictly RPGs or multiplayer games like Mario Kart. You understand why I would have that as a qualifier, no? Because I'm comparing single player campaigns............

XCOM took me 20 hours to finish. Civ single player games can last as long as you want, I've finished games in 2 hours and 12 hours. Arkham Asylum took me 12 hours to beat. GTA 5 is a 25 hour game. Heroes of Might and Magic and other strategy games campaigns do not exceed 20-30 hours. I have played Age of Mythology, Age of Empires, XCOM, Civ 5, Age of Wonders, et al, so I do actually know exactly what I am talking about.

You are in fact the one that has missed the point: which is that most games that are released then and now do not have all that much content... which is sad, tbh. Single player games are getting shorter and shorter unless you buy DLC or participate in multiplayer, with few exceptions like RPGs and games with randomly generated content.

 

[Shoemaker]

iirc, ghostbusters for the nes was pretty easy.

 

[Mike]

Over all, most games these days don't offer 50 to 100 hours of content. I excluded RPGs and multiplayer games for obvious reasons: AAA single player campaigns in 2the modern era are 10-20 hours long typically. NES/SNES games that had 50+ hour campaigns, by virtue of being "offline," due to the era, were strictly RPGs or multiplayer games like Mario Kart. You understand why I would have that as a qualifier, no? Because I'm comparing single player campaigns............

XCOM took me 20 hours to finish. Civ single player games can last as long as you want, I've finished games in 2 hours and 12 hours. Arkham Asylum took me 12 hours to beat. GTA 5 is a 25 hour game. Heroes of Might and Magic and other strategy games campaigns do not exceed 20-30 hours. I have played Age of Mythology, Age of Empires, XCOM, Civ 5, Age of Wonders, et al, so I do actually know exactly what I am talking about.

You are in fact the one that has missed the point: which is that most games that are released then and now do not have all that much content... which is sad, tbh. Single player games are getting shorter and shorter unless you buy DLC or participate in multiplayer, with few exceptions like RPGs and games with randomly generated content.

You seem to be assuming everyone has the same preferences and plays the same games that you do though. I can't speak to what the average AAA game offers, because I don't buy AAA games except for a few exceptions. You make long games seem like some anomaly, but they're out there if that'sx what you want to play. Literally hundreds of rpgs, strategy games, open world games, etc are released on steam every year. Like I said most of my steam library is games I've sunk that kind of time into.

I'm not sure why strategy games, rpgs, and games with replay value don't count. Whether you feel like say roguelikes should count or not, I have hundreds of hours played between my favorite roguelikes. If you come up with all these arbitrary reasons why gameplay hours "don't count" in certain genres, or go off of your play time only, then sure. I know people with 100 hours plus in gta games with no multiplayer. Just because you CAN rush through the game doesn't mean others aren't doing more side content or replaying the game. I've done at least 5 playthroughs of Xcom, and 2 of Xcom 2. But only the hours on the first playthrough count? for some reason?

I mean if you exclude all cases of games with over 50 hours of gameplay, then yes you won't find games with over 50 hours of gameplay. Again I can't speak for the heavily FPS saturated console market, because I don't play those games.

 

[Mike]

Hell with games like HOMM the campaign is a tiny fraction of my gameplay hours. I've probably done 10 or so hours of the campaign, and easily hundreds of hours on the scenario maps

 

[Jumpy]

I just dont see what you're not getting about what I'm saying, but okay. I too have hundreds of hours in multiple games, but again, I'm talking about campaigns. Of course, you can play GTA 6 times through, but the length of the campaign doesn't really change, does it? Unless you're standing around killing hookers, but whatever floats your boat.

Even then, Mordor which is an action RPG, 25 hour story. Darksiders? 20 hours. God of War? 25 ish. I'm talking about single player campaigns and the lack of content in most major releases. I'm not refuting that you can put 100s of hours into a game... I've said this like 6 times now, @Mike but maybe I should have made that distinction in my original reply to your comment "can't make games with 50-100 hours like now,"

 

[Fawlty]

Still haven't beaten the first Castlevania aka "Ninja Gaiden with dogshit physics."

 

[Chad R. Thundercock]

That's part of their beauty. Games had to rely on re-playability because they didn't have the gimmick of graphics to distract and "carry" the game. Memorization and patience were big in old games and it forced you to become "good". Also a lot of NES games and older games in general were ported from Arcade games so the idea was to make them brutally difficult as to force the player to insert another coin...

Bravo. Great first response post to the OP; you've hit the nail on the head regarding the disparity between modern and retro video games. Also, some of the games in the 80's and 90's were damn near impossible to beat without the aid of game guides, online walkthroughs, magazines, or tips from your friends who also owned the game. There was always that nerd in school who knew how to the defeat the final boss of a rpg game or the secret location of a valuable item, and we would all consult him like the village wise man. It really fostered a sense of community amongst video game enthusiasts back in the day.

 

[Kardashians]

Mario? Hard??? I can play through any old Mario game rather quickly tbh. And that’s still catching all my free lifes and unlocking things etc. But I’ll admit I’ve played THE SHIT out of super Mario over my years.

Tho I’ve played the Donkey Kong Country series a lot and lmao it can still be a bitch. Toxic Tower is a cunt that fucked me good. Blasting through barrels in the first world in the first game is a frustrating pain. Yet I love the Bramble Scramble levels in the second game.

 

[Mike]

I just dont see what you're not getting about what I'm saying, but okay. I too have hundreds of hours in multiple games, but again, I'm talking about campaigns. Of course, you can play GTA 6 times through, but the length of the campaign doesn't really change, does it? Unless you're standing around killing hookers, but whatever floats your boat.

Even then, Mordor which is an action RPG, 25 hour story. Darksiders? 20 hours. God of War? 25 ish. I'm talking about single player campaigns and the lack of content in most major releases. I'm not refuting that you can put 100s of hours into a game... I've said this like 6 times now, @Mike but maybe I should have made that distinction in my original reply to your comment "can't make games with 50-100 hours like now,"

Well there you go. We're talking about two separate things. Hence why I kept asking why you were dismissing all my examples. I suppose that's because single player campaigns are important to you.

Not so much to me. I like rpgs, strategy games, dungeon crawlers, rogue likes, open world exploration games, etc. Within those genres I find plenty of games with 50 plus hours, in fact I have more than 50 hours played on most of the games in my steam library.

I don't play stuff like Darksiders or God of war. Closest thing would be Dark Souls, where again I have roughly 100 hours over multiple playthroughs

 

[Jumpy]

Well there you go. We're talking about two separate things. Hence why I kept asking why you were dismissing all my examples. I suppose that's because single player campaigns are important to you.

Not so much to me. I like rpgs, strategy games, dungeon crawlers, rogue likes, open world exploration games, etc. Within those genres I find plenty of games with 50 plus hours, in fact I have more than 50 hours played on most of the games in my steam library.

I don't play stuff like Darksiders or God of war. Closest thing would be Dark Souls, where again I have roughly 100 hours over multiple playthroughs

I play similar game styles to you: TES, FO3, all the Souls games, sRPGs, and multiplayer games. The reason why I made the distinction regarding AAA single player campaigns is because that is what most of the AAA titles that come out have: 10-20 hour campaigns and then the rest of the content gated behind DLC or multiplayer.

 

[Mike]

I play similar game styles to you: TES, FO3, all the Souls games, sRPGs, and multiplayer games. The reason why I made the distinction regarding AAA single player campaigns is because that is what most of the AAA titles that come out have: 10-20 hour campaigns and then the rest of the content gated behind DLC or multiplayer.

The big AAA stuff just doesn't appeal to me very much anymore. About five years ago I took most of my gaming to Steam, where there's a massive amount of variety

 

[mb23100]

Mario? Hard??? I can play through any old Mario game rather quickly tbh. And that’s still catching all my free lifes and unlocking things etc. But I’ll admit I’ve played THE SHIT out of super Mario over my years.

Tho I’ve played the Donkey Kong Country series a lot and lmao it can still be a bitch. Toxic Tower is a cunt that fucked me good. Blasting through barrels in the first world in the first game is a frustrating pain. Yet I love the Bramble Scramble levels in the second game.

Lol. My gf wanted Mario and Donkey Kong Country too. She was disappointed when I told her it was on SNES

 

[Kardashians]

Lol. My gf wanted Mario and Donkey Kong Country too. She was disappointed when I told her it was on SNES

You know what you have to get next

 

[Jumpy]

The big AAA stuff just doesn't appeal to me very much anymore. About five years ago I took most of my gaming to Steam, where there's a massive amount of variety

The only "next gen," console I have is a Switch. All my gaming is done on my PC now or Switch/Vita.

 

[mb23100]

You know what you have to get next

New gf?

 

[Striderxdj]

There are a lot of old NES games that I played religiously as a kid that I still fire up and demolish from time to time, like Bionic Commando or SMB2.

The turbo tunnel in Battletoads is something I can still do easily, and find it funny how so many people reminisce about how hard it was, or how they could never beat it. That level is a complete joke compared to rat race or clinger winger, it takes me dozens of attempts to beat those two levels using an emulator and save state scumming, as a kid I remember that I actually managed to get that far without a Game Genie only once, merely because I got lucky with the level warps and farmed extra lives hitting birds on the rope descent level.

 

[90 50]

Sewer Shark was fuckin hard back in the day

 

[NewS]

Tho I’ve played the Donkey Kong Country series a lot and lmao it can still be a bitch.

I'm currently playing Donkey Kong Country on my mini SNES, what a great game...

 

[90 50]

I'm currently playing Donkey Kong Country on my mini SNES, what a great game...

My g/f got my kid a mini snes, they play the crap out of Mario and donkey Kong country on it.

That game kicks my ass. I’m just past vulture culture, after that I keep messing up

 

[RockstarChris]

i was stuck on the block guy in megaman and my brother came in and destroyed him in 2 seconds then dropped the controller and was out