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Definitely, I always felt just a tinge of bad for how awful I was at the original Super Mario brothers. The NES and SNES games. After playing them on the classi

by ianai 3y ago

Definitely, I always felt just a tinge of bad for how awful I was at the original Super Mario brothers. The NES and SNES games. After playing them on the classic consoles as an adult I realized they were just unforgiving and let my youthful self forgive that. I’ve done much better on the newer Mario games. SMB3 though really does shine.

userbinator 3y ago
There's even a name for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_hard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_hard
- AdmiralAsshat 3y ago
  The difficulty helped hide the fact that you were paying $50 in 1980s money for a game that took approximately an hour to beat. If you could beat it. But I suspect the more common gameplay loop was the one I and my friends encountered: you put the game in, played for 20-35 minutes, got a Game Over. If you were really motivated maybe you tried again and got to Stage 4 instead of Stage 3, but at some point said, screw it, turned the game off, and played something else. These days every game is made with the intention that it can and should be beaten, which is part of why there's so much needless padding in games to stretch them out beyond the 40-hour mark and make the player feel like they're getting "value" for their money.
  - phone8675309 3y ago
    Much of this design also feels like a hangover from the arcade days where you wanted players to die cheap deaths so they plugged more quarters into the machine.
    - ianai 3y ago
      I think all of those games were offered as arcade boxes. Plus you have to figure the audience then was in that sort of mindset. Very good point. My 4-5 year old self can relax at last.
    - goosedragons 3y ago
      Sometimes they were also made harder so it couldn't be beaten on a rental encouraging you to buy the game.
  - treeman79 3y ago
    I remember saving for months to buy each game. Would get 1 for birthday and Christmas. So a new game maybe every 3 months on average. 3 months on the same game and you get good at it. Do this several times and you need a hard game to not just finish it an hour.
Zardoz84 3y ago
Super Mario Bros 3 is the BEST Mario, imo

by ianai 3y ago

userbinator 3y ago

There's even a name for that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_hard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_hard

AdmiralAsshat 3y ago
The difficulty helped hide the fact that you were paying $50 in 1980s money for a game that took approximately an hour to beat. If you could beat it. But I suspect the more common gameplay loop was the one I and my friends encountered: you put the game in, played for 20-35 minutes, got a Game Over. If you were really motivated maybe you tried again and got to Stage 4 instead of Stage 3, but at some point said, screw it, turned the game off, and played something else. These days every game is made with the intention that it can and should be beaten, which is part of why there's so much needless padding in games to stretch them out beyond the 40-hour mark and make the player feel like they're getting "value" for their money.
- phone8675309 3y ago
  Much of this design also feels like a hangover from the arcade days where you wanted players to die cheap deaths so they plugged more quarters into the machine.
  - ianai 3y ago
    I think all of those games were offered as arcade boxes. Plus you have to figure the audience then was in that sort of mindset. Very good point. My 4-5 year old self can relax at last.
  - goosedragons 3y ago
    Sometimes they were also made harder so it couldn't be beaten on a rental encouraging you to buy the game.
- treeman79 3y ago
  I remember saving for months to buy each game. Would get 1 for birthday and Christmas. So a new game maybe every 3 months on average. 3 months on the same game and you get good at it. Do this several times and you need a hard game to not just finish it an hour.

Zardoz84 3y ago

Super Mario Bros 3 is the BEST Mario, imo