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Post by surnshurn on Sept 2, 2015 19:43:02 GMT -5
I noticed this phrase appear in articles during the last 3-4 years. Judging from context, it means a game that is really difficult, but possible to finish. I didn't realize that games on Nintendo consoles had a reputation of being particularly difficult. Is this just a thing where a younger audience tried games from a few eras back and made persistent dialogue of game difficulty from back then? Is it a consensus of the gaming community as a whole?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2015 19:47:18 GMT -5
They are referring to games like Castlevania 1 and Contra that despite being simple games required high skill and focus. Other examples include old arcade games like Robotron and Sinistar.
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Post by alphex on Sept 2, 2015 19:54:35 GMT -5
AFAIK: Nintendo USA had some sort of "games must be so hard they cannot be beaten during a rental session"-policy, causing some US releases on the NES to be harder than their Japanese counterparts. As a result, games that weren't very long were very hard instead. That gave the impression that games on the NES were all hard. Thus the term.
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Post by surnshurn on Sept 2, 2015 19:57:52 GMT -5
They are referring to games like Castlevania 1 and Contra that despite being simple games required high skill and focus. Other examples include old arcade games like Robotron and Sinistar. Thanks! It seems like most pure action games would be suitable for inclusion in this category if they're difficult enough.
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Post by r0ck3rz on Sept 2, 2015 19:58:13 GMT -5
To give more context, no one actually called it the "En-ee-es" or "ness" back then, but simply the "Nintendo." Hence the Genesis commercials in 1990, "Genesis does, what Nintendon't," and eventually the term "Nintendo hard."
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Post by surnshurn on Sept 2, 2015 20:05:43 GMT -5
AFAIK: Nintendo USA had some sort of "games must be so hard they cannot be beaten during a rental session"-policy, causing some US releases on the NES to be harder than their Japanese counterparts. As a result, games that weren't very long were very hard instead. That gave the impression that games on the NES were all hard. Thus the term. I recently played through Megaman 2, which has an easier difficulty mode tacked on specifically for American audiences. I do know that there was a trend of touting gameplay hours as a selling point, which would cause production companies to pad gameplay and inflate difficulty in order to meet that marketing-mandated game-hours goal; but I don't think that was isolated to Nintendo products.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2015 20:09:37 GMT -5
AFAIK: Nintendo USA had some sort of "games must be so hard they cannot be beaten during a rental session"-policy, causing some US releases on the NES to be harder than their Japanese counterparts. As a result, games that weren't very long were very hard instead. That gave the impression that games on the NES were all hard. Thus the term. I recently played through Megaman 2, which has an easier difficulty mode tacked on specifically for American audiences. I do know that there was a trend of touting gameplay hours as a selling point, which would cause production companies to pad gameplay and inflate difficulty in order to meet that marketing-mandated game-hours goal; but I don't think that was isolated to Nintendo products. Yeah, there was a similar impetus behind old arcade games, namely to 'encourage' you to put in more quarters.
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Post by surnshurn on Sept 2, 2015 20:13:02 GMT -5
To give more context, no one actually called it the "En-ee-es" or "ness" back then, but simply the "Nintendo." Hence the Genesis commercials in 1990, "Genesis does, what Nintendon't," and eventually the term "Nintendo hard." The 16-bit wars were the worst. I remember arguing in band with the dude who sat next to me about the importance of RAM and processor speed and how 256 colors... ugh, I was a shameful child
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Post by Deleted on Sept 2, 2015 20:13:40 GMT -5
To give more context, no one actually called it the "En-ee-es" or "ness" back then, but simply the "Nintendo." Hence the Genesis commercials in 1990, "Genesis does, what Nintendon't," and eventually the term "Nintendo hard." The 16-bit wars were the worst. I remember arguing in band with the dude who sat next to me about the importance of RAM and processor speed and how 256 colors... ugh, I was a shameful child BLAST PROCESSING!!!1one
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Post by surnshurn on Sept 2, 2015 20:14:47 GMT -5
Yeah, there was a similar impetus behind old arcade games, namely to 'encourage' you to put in more quarters. This made me laugh.
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Post by r0ck3rz on Sept 2, 2015 20:24:35 GMT -5
It wasn't about the SNES though, it was Sega trying, and succeeding, to get a foothold in a market 90% owned by Nintendo, thanks to being pretty much the only game in town during the 3rd generation. Not that others, Sega(to an extent) included, didn't try.
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Post by Chronis on Sept 2, 2015 22:05:59 GMT -5
To give more context, no one actually called it the "En-ee-es" or "ness" back then, but simply the "Nintendo." Hence the Genesis commercials in 1990, "Genesis does, what Nintendon't," and eventually the term "Nintendo hard." I still call it The Nintendo from time to time, and I always get the quizzical look of "which Nintendo?"
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Post by Scylla on Sept 2, 2015 22:21:50 GMT -5
To give more context, no one actually called it the "En-ee-es" or "ness" back then, but simply the "Nintendo." Hence the Genesis commercials in 1990, "Genesis does, what Nintendon't," and eventually the term "Nintendo hard." Sure, they did. It was very common hear gamers refer to the system as the "NES", and Nintendo, the company, did so on an official level too (just read any Nintendo Power issue from back then). And Genesis was far more in competition with the SNES than the NES. The whole "what Nintendon't" thing was more referring to Nintendo as a company and all their systems/games than any specific system.
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Post by r0ck3rz on Sept 2, 2015 22:56:24 GMT -5
The Super Famicom wasn't even out in Japan by the time "Genesis does what Nintendon't" came about. Honestly, every time someone seems upset about it, it's SNES fanboys getting upset over an NES era slogan, without recognizing the context.
Also, let's just say "most people" simply called the NES the "Nintendo." To the point where video games themselves were recognized as "Nintendo" by people that didn't even play video games.
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Post by elektrolurch on Sept 3, 2015 4:44:27 GMT -5
I always thought the phrase "Nintendo hard" is weird and misleading. Back in the day, not only NES games were hard- all games were, be it on home computers, in the arcades or on home consoles. And this is not only true for action-oriented games. I'd argue that RPGs, Adventures, Strategy games, etc. were all harder in the mid 80ies-early 90ies than they are today! I mean, think of the unforgiving designs of the early Sierra Adventure titles, with tons of deaths and unwinnable situations...
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