LogFAQs > #929737216

WhiskeyDisk posted...

On the one hand, I get where you're coming from PO, but on the other... we're literally from the Nintendo Hard era before that was a trope. SMB 8-2. LoZ flute. TMNT's dam. Battletoads. Mike Tyson. Contra.

Yeah, but even there there weren't really any memorable "I hate this! Okay, I'll play it again. I love this now!" moments for me.

Generally speaking, for games like Battletoads I pretty much hated it, continued hating it, and never stopped hating it, but eventually stopped playing it. And for stuff like TMNT and Contra, it was never really a point where I HATED it, more that I'd hit a point of difficulty but I was already invested enough in the game to want to beat it, so I eventually would, and thus continue. I never really altered my entire view of the game based on a moment of triumph or a sudden reinterpretation of how mechanics worked making things easier.

Even with hard games (and I used to play a lot - I still scoff when I talk to people who say Silver Surfer or 7th Saga were unbeatable because I beat both, and I played ET: The Extra-Terrestrial on the 2600), it was never really a case of the game as a whole not clicking or being something I just kind of hate, but then suddenly everything just drops into place and suddenly I'm seeing the code in the Matrix and getting an endorphin rush as I curbstomp everything. Usually it was a case where I would be into a game from the start, hone skills over time, and then maybe hit a hard section before popping past it.

Sure the dam level was shit, but it didn't make me hate the entire game, it just made me hate the dam level. And managing to develop the reflexes, muscle memory, and map awareness to get past it pretty consistently didn't magically make the entire rest of the game more enjoyable, it just made the dam less frustrating.

For a lot of games I didn't own (mostly ones I'd rent from the library for a week), if it was too hard or just no fun I'd eventually just return it and never think about it again.

The closest I really get to what you're describing might be playing games like Zelda II again 20 years later and managing to beat it in spite of never being able to beat it as a kid (I could never beat the shadow - playing as a drunk adult one night after a party at a friend's house I beat the shadow first try), but even that's not really a case of "getting" the game as a whole, or outright disliking it. I mostly played it as a kid BECAUSE I got 99.44% of the game, and enjoyed it. Which is the sole reason why I even bothered trying to play it again as an adult.
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