Difficulty Difference When Replaying Old Games

[demoman_chaos]

I just replayed a game called Krazy Ivan which is a mech combat game for PS1. It is short, but quite fun and the cutscenes are quite funny. The game revolves around going around the stages and taking on the 3-5 bosses scattered throughout the area. After they are gone, you fight a shield generator core which has walls that circle around it. There is a timer that counts down between boss fights. If it expires, you face off against a special enemy which is a doppelganger of you (And is actually the last boss).
Anywho, I remember getting shitstomped by the level 2 bosses, but replaying it just now I was only close to dying a few times but never did die. Most of the bosses were pretty easy to be honest.
That reminded me of a game called Rocket Knight Adventures I rented as a kid. I remember getting through the first few levels easily, but not being able to get past a certain point because our controller was messed up.
I replayed that not too long ago and had a HELLUVA time with it. Even getting to the first boss proved much more difficult than I remember it being.

Ever play a game that you remember just out right kicking your arse something fierce when you were a kid, then you replay as an adult and just kick the hell out of?
What about a game you remember doing well with as a kid, but as an adult you can't do anything but get beat up?

 

[scorptatious]

Well Crash Bandicoot 2 comes to mind.

When I was little, I could never get past the giant snowball level without help.

Last year, I downloaded the game and ended up beating the entire game within a couple hours. :/

I can kinda say the same about a lot of games from my childhood. Back then I wasn't as skilled at games as I am now.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

That reminded me of a game called Rocket Knight Adventures I rented as a kid. I remember getting through the first few levels easily, but not being able to get past a certain point because our controller was messed up.
I replayed that not too long ago and had a HELLUVA time with it. Even getting to the first boss proved much more difficult than I remember it being.

I fucking love that game. I found it so damn hard as a kid, though. I could only usually get up to the fortress place with the invincible, one-hit-kill knights as a kid but every so often I'd get to the space level and then the boss would always kill me. I played it again last year and managed to beat the game on hard, only dying against the final boss. The unlockable "you die if anything touches you" difficulty is damn-near impossible though.

 

[Lazy]

As a kid I found Sacrifice to be pretty punishingly hard throughout, but replaying it as a teenager I rarely had to try any mission more than once. Even the final boss, who I remembered being defeated by at least a dozen times, proved surprisingly easy.

Also, your avatar is cool.

 

[IronMit]

shinobi on the sega megadrive comes to mind...could barely pass level 5 when I was 10. But then again I was 10

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

I left Resident Evil Code: Veronica X because I couldn't get past the damn Tyrant bos fight on the airplane. I must've fought him what, dozens of times before giving up. Understand I had saved at a point where I had wasted most of my precious grenade launcher ammo and had nary a healing herb on me.

I picked it up a few years later and beat him in a couple of tries. Beat the rest of the game in a couple of days, too.

 

[teqrevisited]

I never used to be able to finish Sonic 1. I could do 2 & 3&K but not 1. Now I could do it easily. On the other hand, Rayman for the PS1 is still something I can't finish.

 

[demoman_chaos]

I never used to be able to finish Sonic 1. I could do 2 & 3&K but not 1. Now I could do it easily. On the other hand, Rayman for the PS1 is still something I can't finish.

Fucking Labyrinth Zone, am I right?

I fucking love that game. I found it so damn hard as a kid, though. I could only usually get up to the fortress place with the invincible, one-hit-kill knights as a kid but every so often I'd get to the space level and then the boss would always kill me. I played it again last year and managed to beat the game on hard, only dying against the final boss. The unlockable "you die if anything touches you" difficulty is damn-near impossible though.

I remember having to cheat like a mofo (via save states) to get through some parts of that game. I remember the last level having a maze of crushing you to death if you weren't as fast as Sonic the Hedgehog.

 

[teqrevisited]

Fucking Labyrinth Zone, am I right?

Labyrinth Zone. Every. Single. Time.

I always dreaded that mantis thing in Sonic 2's Metropolis Zone that sat at the top of the pit full of bouncy things, placed there with the sole intent of punting you all the way to the bottom again, but not as much as I dreaded Labyrinth Zone.

 

[demoman_chaos]

Labyrinth Zone. Every. Single. Time.

I always dreaded that mantis thing in Sonic 2's Metropolis Zone that sat at the top of the pit full of bouncy things, placed there with the sole intent of punting you all the way to the bottom again, but not as much as I dreaded Labyrinth Zone.

Those crab things are often just as demonically placed as the Mantiseseseses. In Act 3, the first train wheel thing you get to has one of those pricks protecting teh higher ledge. You need the blessings of Allah, God, Odin, Zeus, Athena, Mithra, Anubis, Horus, Set, and Superman to get past him.

 

[Slenn]

Let's see... I have a good sizable amount of retro games in my Gameboy library. The one that I remember playing recently that I liked a lot as a kid was Super Mario Land 2. It was the first game I ever owned when I was a kid. My dad bought a silver Game Boy Pocket and the game for me for 50$ at Target. I remember hating the three little pigs in the Mario Zone so much since there were three targets that needed three hits to kill while every other zone had one target to kill with three hits required for defeat. But when I played it again, they were just as annoying but I handled them better.
One other thing that I remember was that I couldn't beat the Space Zone boss as efficiently as I could as a kid. I remember going to the top corner of the screen and mashing the jump button to jump on top of the boss. Yet when I play it today, I can get up there, but for some reason or another I couldn't do it without dying so much. XD

 

[Busard]

Funny you mention that.

I've installed recently some emulators on my PSP, and for the fun of it, got Lion King for Genesis as I used to play that when i was a kid, and thought it to be pretty hard.

Well, screw me, it still has some cheap-ass difficulty everywhere and I still get my ass kicked by cheap falling objects and uncertain leaps :I

 

[Tanis]

Funny you mention that.
I've installed recently some emulators on my PSP, and for the fun of it, got Lion King for Genesis as I used to play that when i was a kid, and thought it to be pretty hard.
Well, screw me, it still has some cheap-ass difficulty everywhere and I still get my ass kicked by cheap falling objects and uncertain leaps :I

TLK is one of those games I play at least once a year, for the heck of it.
The only part I STILL have trouble with (after, what? nearly 2 decades) is that long ass climb in the bone yard where you have to go left/right/left/right/left/right/left/right/left/right/left/right/etc...
To avoid being boiled alive.


OT:
Contra 3: Alien Wars (SNES) may STILL kick my ass...
But Contra 1 (NES) I've come to the point where I can actually BEAT THE GAME...without any sort of cheating.

 

[Hemlet]

I remember kicking all sorts of ass at Kirby's Adventure on the NES when I was kid. I went and tried to replay it about a year ago and DEAR LORD. It's a Kirby game, so it's not exactly difficult, but even still there were some parts where I just kept dying. Parts that I remembered very clearly breezing through as a kid. I have no idea what happened between then and now, but man oh man I was not expecting that.

Likewise, I remember playing Pilot Wings 64 as a kid and having it kick my ass up and down each and every level. Tried playing it again around the same time I replayed Kirby's Adventure and man that game is eeeaaaaassssyyyyyy. SO easy. I found myself wondering how I ever found it difficult.

 

[Omega07]

Bandicoots... all of `em... from Crash 1 `till Crash Bash...

i remember a lot of places where i got my ass handed to me on a silver plate with the side helping of "you suck", but now i breezed through all of them with little to no problems... still enjoyed them a lot... brought back the happy memories of my childhood...

 

[Laluune]

Super Metroid. I remember that game taking MONTHS to finish, and that was with an adult helping me. I remember spending ages finding hidden areas and the boss battles being ridiculously hard. Played it a couple months back with the bf and finished it in a few hours. Still thought it was a great game though.

Abe's Oddysee. I think my patience disappeared. I couldn't get out of the meat factory this time round.

 

[Kyrian007]

I can't beat Tyson (Mr. Dream or whatever they changed him to after the earbiting incident) anymore. Am dreading the day when I'm too old to Punch Out Super Macho Man anymore too.

That being said, today's publishers are just too afraid to make a game difficult anymore for fear of scaring off players. I have not run into a game I couldn't finish since the mid to late 90's. Couldn't finish for the difficulty anyway, plenty I didn't finish because of the bored.