My standards of gaming have changed a lot in recent times just like anyone that has been a gamer all these years. I got pissed off recently when Fallout 4 had a mission that was MUCH more difficult than any of the missions that came before it. So difficult it was that after giving up on it, I put the controller down and haven't actually gone back to play it at all since then.
I will do. I just needed a break because to me gaming is not supposed to be frustrating, something that makes me scare the dog, or make the neighbors wonder what is going on over there. It's supposed to be fun, right?
Well, I realized after a few days that Fallout 4 doesn't have to be hard, I always have the choice of going to go to do other missions or even just wander the countryside searching for treasure. There are a lot of options other than progressing in the way the story has decided. I think that is kind of the entire point of the game.
I reflected back to some of the properly difficult games of the past and how it's amazing to me that I persevered in some of them.
A huge hit in the 80's was this game called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and it would be many years before I found out that this is considered one of the most difficult games ever made. It didn't occur to me at the time because I was more patient back then. 4 lives (each turtle has one) and zero continues. The infamous dam level where you had to diffuse bombs before time ran out was famous but me and a buddy recognized really early on that you just had to sacrifice your least affective turtle to that level which is and always was Rafael with his sais that extend as far away from his body as a sandwich would. You ALWAYS preserve Donotello because his bo staff could cheese enemies through the walls and floor.
I defeated that game many times.
Now let's talk about a game that was so hard that it actually made me cry as a child.
It was called "Ghosts and Goblins" and I think most people bought this game because of the box art.
That little red guy floating above would quickly become something you absolutely hate. They are called "red devils" but I'm sure we all shouted our own names for them as we played along.
There was a cave level where you would face almost nothing other than these guys and their attack has to be one of the most irritating in the history of gaming. They would stay just beyond your reach and if you approached to try to strike them they would swoop faster than you could dodge and kill you. To make matters worse your jumps were *locked" once you hit the button. This isn't Mario, you can't move around in the air. When you decided to jump in a certain direction that is the direction you were going to go in, and fall damage was fatal.
You can only take 2 hits in this game and getting your armor back after it was gone didn't happen very often. These red devils live in infamy as one of the most annoying and unpredictable enemies of all time.
Now how did it make me cry? Well this level (which is only LEVEL 3!) was punishingly difficult but I stuck with it. This is the days of the NES mind you, so no games yet had the ability to save. I had finally, after HOURS gotten past the cave level with a level of dedication that I have never shown at any point in my life ever up to that point, and my mother was walking by probably doing something awesome and motherly like laundry and tidying up while her useless son played videogames and she tripped on the controller cable and accidentally reset the NES. All of my progress was GONE.
She apologized like the saint that she is but I bet she was really confused as to how something like that could make me so sad. I still remember that to this day.
I would eventually (and without internet assistance) eventually defeat the game only to have the game do what the game does and tell you that you don't really defeat the game until you defeat it twice! I never did manage that. I don't think I tried.
The point is, I think I need to chill out a bit when it comes to crying about Fallout 4 being too hard. It's as easy as you want it to be any time you want it to be that way. There was no "easy mode" in TNMT or Ghosts and Goblins. Both of these games were punishingly difficult from start to finish and the "easy mode" was to not play them.
We have it pretty good these days. On that note I guess I will go and do some more side missions in Fallout 4 and almost certainly not end up crying in the meantime.
