Are Retro Games Harder Than Today's Games?

Retro games are actually quite explosive these days. The popularity towards them is going through the roof. As an old-school gamer, I can understand the devotion and attraction towards classic games. They are indeed fulfilling and current games can't really be the same in many aspects.

The question today is - are retro games actually harder than today's games? In most aspects, yes, they are way harder than the games we have today. Here's why.

Gaming is easy for everyone these days. You open up a new game you bought and normally there are guides and tutorials explaining how the game works or at least teaches you the basics to begin with. Most retro games usually have little to no information about the in-game controls and you have to find out how stuff works by yourself. This alone makes retro games way harder as there is no other way to get to know the game besides figuring it out as you play.

Also, nowadays games literally show you the path you have to take to continue your progress. I remember the feeling of not knowing if I'm actually making progress or just wasting time in old-school games. Most of them did not nudge you towards the right direction and you had to rely on your gut. If we take most of the current games, there will be things like task logs, way-points, indicators and more to make an easy glide during your gaming experience. I actually dislike that. The ability to literally not know anything that's going on and being unsure whether you're making progress or not seems way more challenging and appealing, in my opinion.

Retro games like Super Mario Brothers 3 did not have a save option in the past, as it was the early days of console gaming. Imagine the challenge of not turning off your console if you want to beat the game, else your progress will be lost. Sounds kind of silly, doesn't it? Well, that's what was happening in the past and it wasn't all that bad. In fact, after managing to beat the game, the feeling of achievement was underwhelming.

This might not really sound appealing, because who would want to play a game which does not have a save option? Sounds like a waste of time and electricity. But ultimately it brought a challenge to gamers, which was really fun to overcome. Current games let you save your progress anywhere at any time and you can jump right back from where you finished last time. Of course, hardly anyone would play a game without an ability to save your progress, but this is another factor which made retro games harder than today's games.

Sure, there are games like Dark Souls which are pretty hard as well, but most of the games really went downhill in terms of competition and challenge. I hardly break a sweat playing current games and it does bring a sort of numbness - feeling like everything is so easy. I think the industry is more focused on more appealing things like story, graphics and other factors which make the game more crowd-based, hence why the sense of achievement is kind of long gone for someone like me.

So yes, personally I think retro games were way harder than today's games. I think if you'd jump on an old-school game and compare it to a latest one, you would most likely agree with my opinion.

Thanks for reading and share your thoughts!

@cheaky