But did it really make the games last? Would Contra have been as popular without the Konami code? What about Ikari Warriors and "Up + Start?" Mario Bros. (and later iterations) had warp pipes allowing you to bypass or easily access later levels. I think it's more that people forgave these games because nothing else was available. That, or they had a Game Genie.Eleas wrote:There was a pretty huge range of difficulty. Some games were, as pointed out earlier, just punishing in order to make the game last.
Sonic was just Mario with easy mode and nitrous. It's also SNES era. I will give that it's original formula worked well and later games that broke away from that sucked. It also had a graphics and controls edge over Metroid, but the games aren't really comparable because Metroid has never been a straight platformer. Sonic and Mario could be beaten by moving from left to right. Metroid almost required a guide just to find game required upgrades. I remember bomb jumping through walls, then ending up confused because I'm in an area that my home-made map says I shouldn't be in.Same thing with Sonic. Having never played Metroid, I can't comment, but I would imagine it to be similar.
SNES era and it also relied heavily on memorization. I could beat the game in one go, gun fights aside. I would also get jacked by the occasional missed jump, but that was controls more than anything. It also benefited from checkpoints and no "Game Over" screen. It's also one of the first I remember of having death animations depending on how you died or what killed you. Resident Evil would take that to a whole new level. The game isn't easy, but it doesn't punish you excessively for fucking up 3 times, like many games of it's generation (the SNES era was when more and more games relied on save data).A bare minority of games were sufficiently varied and interesting that you would play them despite their unfairness. Another World springs to mind.
I can't think of many NES games I beat legit or that would do well with a direct port. Sadly, one off-hand is "Goonies 2" which was ahead of it's time when it came to inventory management. It even channeled adventure games with it's weird puzzles. Then again, porting it would have kids all around asking "WTF is the Goonies?" and I just don't have the time to beat that many people to death.
Faxanadu could have updated graphics and some more dialog added in and might do ok as an XBLive arcade game. Shadow Complex showed that there's still a niche for well-made 2D (or quasi 3D) platformers with "Go here do X" mentality. But there's almost no way they could compete with the plethora of FPSs that dominate the market today. I disagree with the OP though: I like Reshelled because it has four-player co-op. Half the fun with games like Contra and River City Ransom was co-op.
