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So I was watching a few youtubes and remembered how the vast majority (of like the ten) nes games me and my sister had were hard as all hell. I loved to play Little Nemo and Street Fighter 2010 but I am pretty sure I never made it past the third level of either. Let alone infamously hard games like The Lion King.

Which got me thinking. Basically every game for the past 20 years has been designed around instant gratification and being accessible. We outright had to make a new concept "hard but fair" to account for games like Dark Souls that are designed to be difficult but beatable as opposed to putting you in a death spiral if you hesitate too long on a hard jump (hello Ninja Gaiden).

So do the younger folk even have a concept of a "favorite game" where you likely never experienced more than fifteen minutes worth of content?

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[-] zyratoxx@lemm.ee 26 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Do I need to explain any further?

[-] jaykay@lemmy.zip 7 points 10 months ago

That’s why I only play aram, urf and 5v5 lmao

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[-] Moonguide@lemmy.ml 18 points 10 months ago

KSP. Never managed to even land on the Mün without a fast and violent end to the crew, but I loved building spaceships.

The best thing I managed to do was to achieve an orbit around Kerbin.

[-] meekah@lemmy.world 8 points 10 months ago

I'm pretty sure I saw a YouTube video where some actual rocket scientist said that KSP was amazingly realistic, so you having achieved anything at all seems incredible to me! I just know I spent a few hours with that game and never got anything to not explode. Some things would launch but oscillate out of control and explode eventually.

[-] Moonguide@lemmy.ml 3 points 10 months ago

Oh no, my rockets oscillated like crazy. I just strapped more boosters and struts and hoped it got out of the atmosphere before it got Kraken'd.

[-] bionicjoey@lemmy.ca 3 points 10 months ago

I could do manned missions to Mun and Minmus, but I don't think in my hundreds of hours of play I ever set Kerbal feet on another planet. I did launch some probes though.

[-] PresidentCamacho@lemm.ee 2 points 10 months ago

Shoot same! I swear to God it was like the controls were broken on every rocket I ever made. No matter how symmetrical it was I felt like I was always fighting the controls.

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[-] eighty@lemmy.world 18 points 10 months ago

literally all fighting games. started with smash, loved to sf4, then dbfz. sucked hard but still f opening fgc content to this day - planning to buy sf6 when i get the chance/time

[-] theshatterstone54@feddit.uk 15 points 10 months ago

Did, and still do enjoy fast-paced shooters from time to time but I absolutely suck at it. Sometimes you just need to do something exciting without putting too much thought into it and not having a care about whether you win or lose, what your K/D is or whatever. I just find it a nice way to unwind from time to time.

[-] communist@beehaw.org 12 points 10 months ago

I brute forced my way through learning starcraft, it took literal years to get out of the bronze league, probably my most played game of all time. Can't wait for immortal gates of pyre.

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[-] MrBubbles96@lemmy.ml 10 points 10 months ago

Dunno if I'd consider myself "younger" anymore (who am i kidding, i ain't THAT old lol), but...

If we count really old games: the OG castlevania's. Didn't grow up during that era, but thanks to handmedowns, i got to play pre Symphany Vania when i was super young. Love them, wish i was better at them tho. The collections are sitting in my steam library, and maybe some day, I'll beat at least one of the classics.

For something more recent(?) tho, i love me some Touhou. fangames, offically made games by Zun, fan games in the style of Zun, ya name it....but MAN do i suck at the actual bullethell Touhou games. i can make it past two or 3 stages, but then the boss destroys me and I'm like "I CAN choose continue, nothing but pride is stopping me...but also, if i can't manage this far without continuing, how bad is the rest gonna be??" and wuss out lol

[-] Fizzlebleam@lemmy.ml 10 points 10 months ago

I am a young user of lemmy ( I am in high school ), And, I really suck in games, but I love the blinding of isaac: repentance,I didnt played as many games as that, but I think it is the hardest game I've played, and my favorite.

[-] HouseWolf@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago

I absolutely sucked at games as a kid, Most of my absolute favourite games I played all day for months on end as a kid I still never finished... even on the easiest setting.

Wasn't until my 20s I started going back to a lot of these games and finally completing them 100% on hardest mode. It's quite a feeling :)

[-] bigoljim@lemmy.ml 3 points 10 months ago

Keep and it, in a few years you can be like me. An old guy who loves Issac, but still sucks at it!

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[-] keepcarrot@hexbear.net 10 points 10 months ago

Sort of relevant, I had a friend who was really into super smash brothers (brawl, I think). Talked a lot about the competitive scene, different moves and tactics etc. He didn't have a Wii or Switch though, we were all pretty broke.

Anyway, some money came buy and he was able to grab a Switch and SSB finally. Super keen.

And then he just kinda sucked at. It was pretty sad, he almost immediately stopped being excited about it and the Switch, which he had bought new, was barely used a couple of months later. I was kinda worried about him because he wasn't mentally in a good place before that and talking about SSB seemed like an outlet for him (none of us in the mutual group played or cared about the game).

This was a while ago, he's doing much better now

[-] JackbyDev@programming.dev 5 points 10 months ago

Smash Brothers is one of those games where you think you're good casually but it has such high skill cielings that even other casual players can curb stomp you. It depends so heavily on what sort of games you played growing up. (Assuming you don't out in effort to practice I mean.) I (used to) be able to reliably win against my wife because she never played anything growing up, but my friends that played a lot of fighting games growing up easily beat me.

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[-] UnRelatedBurner@sh.itjust.works 8 points 10 months ago

oh yes, a bunch.

Sekiro wasn't as hard for any of my friends then if was for me, that game practically made me not hesitate, even just a little.

Then there's ULTRAKILL that game aant you to do everything from muscle memory or it's straight up going to kill you, Have not perfected the final challenge, but the game is extreamly fun.

And to give you another example, let's sag the Keli games. Oxygen NotnIncluded and Don't Starve (Together), these two can be the two hardest games I've ever played. Easly clocking in more then double the playtime then the previous two, and yet I've never beaten neither of them. In Oxygen I managed to get to the "mid game", as the community calls it, ONCE, on m most recent. In Don't Starve all my notable achievements are because I have friends that play way better than me and we played co-op.

These games are easly in my top 10, making me work for the reward is much more fun. Played Legue and Fortnite 1k hours in both. I hate them for making me addicted and stealing my life. Oh, also you asked for younger gamers, I'm 17.

[-] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 8 points 10 months ago
[-] mdhughes@lemmy.ml 7 points 10 months ago

Well now I just want to watch young people try to beat the unbeatable games of my yout'.

Prince of Persia, Mega Man X, Ghosts & Goblins, Ecco the Dolphin (my favorite, but I screamed so much at Ecco dying one pixel away from air). Zork without a walkthru. Solve all the puzzles yourself or by talking to friends also playing it blind.

And you paid $60 ($200 in today's bullshit money) for this, you can't get another for 3 months.

[-] mikezane@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

God damn, I think Super Ghouls and Ghosts gave me PTSD. I literally spent an entire summer where that was the only game I played. The absolute freefall of my happiness when I went from thinking I was going to finally get a chance to beat the final boss to the princess telling me I had to play the game all over again but with a shitty bracelet as a weapon was damned near heartbreaking.

[-] Zahille7@lemmy.world 3 points 10 months ago

I got pretty far in Sands of Time, but never actually finished it. The first miniboss of Warrior Within can eat my entire ass, though.

[-] Destraight@lemm.ee 6 points 10 months ago

Noita. People say the final boss is the tutorial boss 💀

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[-] populustree@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 10 months ago

i like ddr alot, but i suck ass at it

still a fan

[-] Kissaki@feddit.de 3 points 10 months ago
[-] theskyisfalling@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 10 months ago

Dance dance revolution.

[-] populustree@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 10 months ago

dance dance revolution, a neat arcade rhythm game played with your feet

[-] Xariphon@kbin.social 5 points 10 months ago

Have we reached an age of the Internet where people don't know what DDR is anymore??

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[-] nitefox@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 months ago

World of Warcraft. You may wonder how can I possibly suck at it, and well... I just do.

[-] Hobart_the_GoKart@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago

I love, but suck at, Minecraft. How am I so bad?

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[-] callouscomic@lemm.ee 5 points 10 months ago

Terraria. Spent so much time in it. Tons of fun. I liked a lot of it. But I compared to other friends and realized I was terrible and barely even saw much of the game cause I didn't get very far.

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[-] nayminlwin@lemmy.ml 4 points 10 months ago

Dota and Starcraft 1/2

[-] atlasraven31@lemm.ee 4 points 10 months ago

I love Supreme Commander. Terrible at it.

[-] ThisIsAManWhoKnowsHowToGling@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

For me, Dwarf Fortress. I have never gotten far in that game. It's fascinated me since I was 13, and I still suck at it.

[-] Lauchs@lemmy.world 4 points 10 months ago

Never thought about it like that. The Adventures of Willie Beamish taught me a lot about the nature of an uncaring universe... And now I don't think it's possible for someone to be frustrated in that same vexating way anymore as the solution is only ever a google away.

[-] space@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 10 months ago

Age of Empires 2. Love the game, but I'm terrible at it... I can barely beat the medium AI. I was defeated in pretty much every online match.

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[-] SecretPancake@feddit.de 4 points 10 months ago

I am not young but I can’t beat Souls games. I adore the world design of Dark Souls, Bloodbourne and Elden Ring but I just can’t motivate myself to suffer through them. I know they are beatable, there are many safepoints, but I don’t have fun doing that. Still, I wish these games had a difficulty slider for anyone who just wants to enjoy the story. But that will freak out the gamer bros who think that will somehow ruin their precious game.

And it’s not like I never play anything on hard mode. Games like Sniper Elite work best in „Authentic“ mode for me. In puzzle games I always turn off any assistance if possible. But simply increasing the health bar of bosses is not my understanding of fun.

[-] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 3 points 10 months ago

Depends on how young you mean exactly, but there's a niche space warfare simulator (simulator in the sense that it only uses currently or very close to existing technology, models the behavior of every major component on a ship, and the developer has stated that it intentionally isn't made to be balanced as their motive for making it was partially to see what kind of strategies might become dominant in a space war rather than create a balanced game, obviously a true simulator of a space war would be difficult considering one hasn't happened yet) called "Children of a Dead Earth" that I really like the concept of, and really want to enjoy, but have never been able to properly get into, because I've never managed to design ship components that are particularly efficient or effective compared to premade examples, and my experience in games like Kerbal space program havent given me a good enough understanding of the game's more realistic orbital mechanics to figure out how to maneuver my fleets properly. It feels like a game that one needs to be a bigger space nerd than I am to properly enjoy, but that same effort at realism is why I find it so appealing in the first place.

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[-] ferrodegaragem@lemmy.eco.br 3 points 10 months ago

Pretty much all of them, especially fighting games. I liked SF4 but absolutely sucked at trying any more complex combos.

[-] MJBrune@beehaw.org 2 points 10 months ago

It really just depends on the genre. Platformers usually have one set difficulty. As does games like Castle Crashers. A few rogue likes offer difficulty settings but they typically range from very difficult to impossible without options for easy.

That said games like the lion king were interesting because their difficulty is typically so high because designers back then were designing for the arcade, even with home release only games. It's a mindset the industry was in.

[-] lemann@lemmy.one 2 points 10 months ago

Road Rash on the PS1, absolutely loved it but could barely win a race on it 😂 yeeting other riders off their motorbikes was too much fun.

Also thought the video cutscenes and menus looked kinda cool back then, especially compared to the simple ones in fighting games (tekken, versus etc). Actually thinking about it now, the music on Tekken's character select screen really made you feel like you were in an arcade

[-] Helix@feddit.de 3 points 10 months ago

There's a spiritual successor to Road Rash which is Road Redemption, I can recommend it. I found it to be a bit easier to control.

[-] minthenry@lemmy.one 2 points 10 months ago

Does it count I loved Quake 3 back in the day? Wasn't good at all at it but still I think it's one of the greatest games ever made and I loved playing it, especially Rocket Arena.

[-] Prouvaire@kbin.social 2 points 10 months ago

I'm a younger user of lemmy in the sense that I've only been a Fediverse user for less than a year. 😇

Starcraft (1 and 2). I suck. Suck in the "had trouble finishing the campaign on Normal, couldn't get out of Bronze league" sense of suck.

But I love it. It's my favourite video game, though these days I only watch it rather than play it, for reasons of see above.

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this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023
102 points (94.7% liked)

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