Those "When the hell did this get so easy?!" moments...

[Eggsnham]

I just downloaded Oregon Trail 5 because of nostalgia, I was fully prepared to lose everything I owned immediately and for everybody to die of dysentery and/or cholera; but no. Nobody in my party died, I only had a few river fording mishaps, and only one person got dysentery... coincidentally, that same person also sprained their ankle every time we had to go up or down a hill, by the end I was contemplating whether or not I should just try and kill them off somehow.

When I look back on the many hours I spent playing that game in my childhood, I remember being constantly wiped out by infectious diseases and horrible water related disasters -- what the hell happened?!

Instead of being utterly destroyed, I actually made it to Oregon City and made into the top 3 in the high scores list!

Was I really that inept as a child?

Anyways, share any relevant experiences if you like.

 

[Beautiful End]

Um, Kirby Super Star. granted, that game wasn't that hard to begin with but when I was a kid, I used to play that game all the time and it was quite a challenge to find every treasure, beat The Arena almost with no regenerative items and so on. Now I play it and it's a breeze.

I guess this can all be easily justified by the fact that I got better at gaming overall as the years went by.

 

[piinyouri]

Threads of Fate.
Damn is that game a cakewalk. To the point where I started contemplating if it wasn't Squares attempt at a "Baby's first RPG" type thing.

 

[Smeggs]

I remember when Ark the Lad: Twilight of Spirits was hard as hell for me. I was probably 12? About three years ago, borrowed it from a friend, knocked it out in a few days no sweat, my only real problem being the final boss. I honestly think I never had a Game Over in that game. If I did, maybe twice as the most, one of those being against the final boss. My problem was my child mind wanted to move forward in the story, and back then I didn't understand the actual concept of level-grinding to fight bosses. I leveled up in Pokemon games before fighting gyms, but I guess I just really didn't get it.

After all, I didn't actually learn of the gaming term "grinding" until I was probably 15 or so. Also, when shit got difficult, I'd tend to lose interest really fast and move to the next form of instant gratification.

This same story can be applied to Chrono Cross and Jade Cocoon.

 

[Jolly Co-operator]

I get this feeling whenever I start a new file on Dark Souls. Since I now know how all the stats work, how weapon stat scaling works, and and have accumulated some skill, the early sections feel like a cake-walk . . . and then I get to Sen's Fortress, where I am put back in my place.

 

[NoeL]

Totally Rad on the NES. Kicked my arse as a kid, and I thought my older brother was a god for getting up to the last level, but I played it again recently and breezed through it. Same goes for Castle Adventure on DOS.

 

[Ix Rebound]

On Warframe when I crafted the Paris bow
I became something like Hawkeye/Robin hood/space samurai, making the Grineer soldiers my *****

 

[Psycomantis777]

Oblivion... When I started, as most do, I was pretty slow to start and now... Sweet Danzig's Mother I can play the whole damn thing from start to finish, dubbed into a made-up language with the TV off...

Guess now I see why they changed lockpicking for Fallout 3 and Skyrim...

 

[00slash00]

final fantasy 13-2. i mean no part of that game was hard, but...

Spoiler

at the end when you fight caius in his first phase i barely had any time to attack and his health was barely going down. then jump in to phase 2 and i beat him in like 5 minutes

 

[bug_of_war]

Dragon Age: Origins, fighting High Dragons. At first it was hard because, well, it is a 50 foot beast that breathes fire, but after 2 play throughs figuring out it's tactics and my own became real easy. put all of Wynne's skill points in her willpower and choose all the healing perks, have Sten wear heavy-ish armour and give him his blade with paralysis and freeze runes. Have Leliana shoot Andraste arrows, filth arrows etc. And depending on what class I either:

Cast a shit ton of spells from a distance while downing lyrium
Get in nice and close and stab him with two blades, each with 1 to 2 runes
Same as above only with a two handed weapon

It's kinda disappointing now.

 

[KingKickass]

Definitely World of Warcraft, how I remember it from release to when I stopped in 2008 to now; it's like it's catering to bad players or wanting people to level up extremely fast. In the same amount of time it took you to level up to 20 in the previous version you can level up 5 characters to 20.

 

[Alfador_VII]

Definitely World of Warcraft, how I remember it from release to when I stopped in 2008 to now; it's like it's catering to bad players or wanting people to level up extremely fast. In the same amount of time it took you to level up to 20 in the previous version you can level up 5 characters to 20.

You've fallen into the trap of thinking that just because levelling is deliberately faster, the rest of the game is easy. Because of the ever higher level cap, they make it easier to get there in a reasonable time. Also, reaching 20 is only just out of the newbie zone, especially as the current cap is 90

Now there is a reasonable argument to be made about easier max level content, but really, there's 3 difficulty levels, the hardest of which is pretty damn challenging still.

 

[DoctorObviously]

The Ratchet and Clank games did this for me, as well as the Crash Bandicoot games. Pretty much every game I played when I was a kid was really hard.

 

[Angelowl]

Medieval 2 Total War. Within the span of a week I've attempted the byzantine campaign 4-5 times. Either mongols, or a massive jihad or Venice that simply won't die. On the tactical level I had heroic victories everywhere but I either ran out of money or didn't have enough armies.

Then I attempted a scottish campaign and steamrolled everyone in sight. Having some lancers helped a lot, just like having proper infantry... (as the byzantines I never had enough florenz for a fortress).

Thus I concluded that the byzantine campaign was pretty much broken. Horse archers are horrible for auto-resolve and everyone is your enemy.

Seriously, I started to think I was somewhat of a noob (been playing strategy games for 15 years) and then I pretty much break it. XD

 

[Tyrant_Valvatorez]

The original Disgaea. I was I think like 11 when I first played it and just kinda understood the mechanics, barely scraped by most of the game and resorted to exploits for the post game. Now it is a case of me knowing the mechanics so well that there is no challenge at all, luckily though the humour and cast are enough to make me go back.

 

[Tom_green_day]

Not as old, but Mass Effect 3. I did a whole trilogy playthrough a while ago and the last mission was just so easy, biotic charging about the place.
OK an old one: Rome Total War. Any battle can be won with a cavalry rush, even against pikemen... just go behind them. Also defending is easy regardless of armies, even if you only have peasants, as they all rush through small gaps where you can just slaughter them.

 

[Euryalus]

Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. I remember that game being really hard when I was younger. I got stuck several times. The boost ball guardian, The spider guardian, Quadraxis, and Emperor Ing stalled me for at least good two or three years. I went back last summer and breezed right through everything. It wasn't even just that I knew how to beat them, but that they were ridiculously easy, barely a challenge at all. Emperor Ing in particular seemed a cake walk compared to what I remember. I don't understand XD

I don't really see myself as all that great at video games, so I have no clue how I improved so much.