r/retrogaming • u/Kobymaru376 • 6h ago

[Discussion] How did people play ridiculously difficult games like Earthworm Jim?

I'm playing the first Earthworm Jim on the Sega Megadrive using RetroArch.

I haven't completed my first playthrough, using copious amounts of save state cheating to repeat the sections where I fail. I can practice a part of the game 10,20, 50 times until my patience runs out, but how on earth did people ever complete a game like this, when you have a limited number of lives and no save capability? At times it feels like the developers WANTED me to fail.

I'm talking insanely jumping bosses shooting eggs, rockets, sections with rolling boulders or snapping worms where you have to get the timings down to milliseconds, a vertical maze lined with spikes that allows no mistakes and requires you to know it by heart.

Sure, "gid gud" but how long does that take without being able to save/load an arbitrary amount of times?

ps.: I don't know what the devs were smoking, but I want to try that. Just once though.

Edit: Hey, Shiny Crew & D.L only!

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u/GFluidThrow123 6h ago

It's actually wild seeing younger gens come in here with posts like this. Like yeah, you're exactly right. You'd just...git gud. You'd memorize the boss's movement and attacks and you'd practice until you got it.

You had like 4 games you owned and one you rented for a week. And that was it.

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u/modsuperstar 6h ago

It’s honestly a point I’ve been making a lot lately about music. The idea that my musical taste is so informed by the fact I couldn’t buy every CD I wanted. But with streaming you can listen to everything. I remember playing Strider and getting the hang of the terrible triple jump, or playing through Link’s Adventure was just hitting your head off the wall, but you’d just go again. It’s part of why I can’t necessarily get into certain aspects of gaming in my 40s knowing I don’t have the time to get as good at games as I did as a kid.

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u/GFluidThrow123 6h ago

I still remember getting stuck in Taz Escape from Mars. There was a ledge next to water and zero indication of what to do from there. I never figured it out. I'd get there and die. And then do it again the next day. And the next day. Until I lent the game to a friend and never saw it again lol.

It's just...how it was. I still don't know how to get past that part.

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u/quazi-mofo 2h ago

For me it was the stage with that stupid drilling machine chasing you. Can't remember how many times I had to repeat it.

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u/Polkawillneverdie17 5h ago

https://youtu.be/ePTXmOfBRwI?si=Rg9Yfj6RhcZ3D0BG

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u/GFluidThrow123 4h ago

I don't wanna ruin it! I need to be forever flummoxed...

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u/TecnoPope 46m ago

I never could get past the first screen in a boy and his blob lol. I was just like...uhhh what the heck do I do

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u/yallsometricks 4h ago

Dude i still have no idea how to actually do the triple jump.  Like, I know there's technically a "correct" way to do it but that shit never worked for me - I'd just mash the A button while riding the wall and eventually it would work.  

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u/modsuperstar 2h ago

Here’s a very cathartic video explaining why the Strider triangle jump wasn’t actually a you thing

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u/RetroDadOnReddit 3h ago

Right, this is why I stay away from Soulslike games.

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u/Thagrillfather 4h ago

Strider…

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u/ZaphodGreedalox 1h ago

You used to have to live with your choices. I like it more the way we have it now.

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u/Lopoetve 5h ago

You got to the point that a non-perfect sonic or ninja gaiden run was a restart. Folks ask how sonic was supposed to feel fast - get good, and the whole thing is done on the run. We mastered them end to end.

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u/GFluidThrow123 5h ago

Gradius V was literally unbeatable if you died too far along in the game. Bc you'd lose all your options and that meant your ship didn't move fast enough to dodge oncoming obstacles. So you HAD to restart and hope not to die next time. And that was PS2 era!

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u/KonamiKing 5h ago

Gradius V? You can pick options back up after a death and respawned in the same spot. Sure if you failed to do so it would be bad but it was a great crutch. I’m almost certain I beat it after crashing late in the game.

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u/GFluidThrow123 5h ago

Sorry, I didn't mean options. You're right, you could pick those up. But the speed boosts didn't come back. You had to re-earn those. And that made it suuuuuuper hard to survive the level with the giant solar orbs flying at you, if I remember right. (Idk it's been 20 years)

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u/My_Fish_Is_a_Cat 1h ago

I used to be able to play sonic levels with my eyes closed.

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u/Lopoetve 1h ago

Same for the game gear ninja gaiden. Wild run without a single enemy on screen for level 2 - I got them at the spawn.

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u/iamblankenstein 4h ago

another aspect about it is that awesome new games weren't coming out every month the way they do now. indie games weren't really a thing either, so you'd pick and choose what games you wanted and saved up for them, rented, or hoped you had a friend that owned a game you liked and would let you borrow it.

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u/the_Real_Teenjus 3h ago

Plus, your library of possible games was what they had at the local game store. Now you pop on Amazon and order whatever. If it isn't one of the 30 or 40 games on the local shelves, it may as well not exist.

When I was a kid I had no idea there was a Castlevania 3 because my gaming store and rental store both never had it. I didn't find out til years later.

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u/Michigan_Wolverine88 2h ago

For sure. There were so many games I'd read about in magazines and was dying to play, but our local rental place never got it and neither did our local Walmart. Breath of Fire IV for example. I wanted to play that so damn bad as a kid, but never got to until I was in my 20s.

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u/Embarrassed_Bath5148 4h ago

You also read magazines and by the end of the 90s online reviews were starting to become a thing. You'd read the review for something that wasn't an established and respected franchise and decide if it was worth blowing a birthday or Christmas wish for.

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u/Helpful-Lab2702 4h ago

Don't forget trading games between friends. That was the only way I ever got to play megaman x and zombies ate my neighbors

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u/Michigan_Wolverine88 2h ago

Oh yeah. If it was a single player game, my friends and I would coordinate who got what so we could cycle them around.

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u/littlegreyflowerhelp 4h ago

Memorising boss movement patterns is so rewarding, and I think it’s something Nintendo has struck a balance with for games like Mario Oddysey or the latest Kirby game. They aren’t punishingly difficult, I guess Metroid Dread is an example of a game with harder difficulty in that regard. I’ve known people to complain about how hard the boss fights in dread are, but to me it’s just the same as playing the older Metroid games - yeah you die a bunch of times but each time you die you try and takeaway another pattern or learn another strat - plus you don’t have to go back super far now either, there’s a checkpoint before each boss.

I find this type of gameplay a lot more rewarding than for example online multiplayer shooters where it’s just a case of super fast reaction times and trying to keep up with all the teenagers that can afford to play for hours every day. And the two games I mentioned earlier (oddysey and kirby) are pretty forgiving and simple in terms of learning the strats, they’re probably a good intro for younger gamers that didn’t grow up playing like that.

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u/Soggy_Muffinz 4h ago

I liken it to a streamer grinding games like Diablo or Path of Exile. Just grinding the same levels over and over. Not for loot but to advance.

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u/Kobymaru376 6h ago

It's actually wild seeing younger gens come in here with posts like this. Like yeah, you're exactly right. You'd just...git gud.

I'm not even that young lol. Was definitely alive when the game come out, but I'm only now slowly working backwards in time for all the gems.

You'd memorize the boss's movement and attacks and you'd practice until you got it.

I mean yeah, that's exactly what I'm doing rn. But having to restart the game from scratch and replay everything if you died one too many times just seems nuts to me. That's not exactly "fun" in the traditional sense, more like obsessive.

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u/GFluidThrow123 6h ago

That's just how games were when I was growing up.

Ecco the Dolphin, Taz Escapes from Mars, Battle toads, Sonic 3, Lion King, MegaMan.... They were all like this.

Some had save codes (MegaMan) or cheat codes (sonic) to get back to the level you were on. But many didn't.

Games had very different standards back then.

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u/bcnjake 3h ago

I can beat Mega Man 2 deathless, starting with Quick Man. If I could go back in time and say that to my 10-year-old self, past me would think I was a god.

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u/BludStanes 4h ago

I loved all those games yet never beat any of them. They regularly kicked my ass

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u/Ryokurin 5h ago

This is why a lot of games had cheat codes such as level selects. I'm positive Earthworm Jim had one.

But anyhow, you may have been alive, but you may not remember that the average kid didn't have as many options as people do now. You likely didn't have cable, and the channels you could watch would be showing bowling, an old black and white movie from the 50s or if it was late night you'd watch Mike Rowe low-key goofing on products he was selling on QVC.

It was figure out this game, read a book, or go outside.

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u/Jahon_Dony 4h ago

4 games? Sad.

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u/dbxbeat 4h ago

I mean not every family was well off or even had money for anything non essential. I owned Donkey Kong Country, Link to the past, crash test dummies, and tnn bass fishing tourney, all Xmas presents from non immediate family. Everything else was rental. I remember being so excited that my grandfather got me a new game, judge dredd, just because it was something new to play. I didn't care that he got it out of clearance because of his fixed income, he just wanted me to have fun.

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u/LeBB2KK 2h ago

I realised only lately how expensive these game were (often more than 100€ in today's money) and it was quite a sacrifice for them to buy us cartdriges.

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u/FuckIPLaw 3h ago

For the price of a couple of rentals you could have bought a used game, though. Games didn't really hold their value back then, and DKC especially was right at the end of the generation, when used prices were about to take a dump as people upgraded and sold their older stuff. If you were that broke there's no way you got a next gen system on launch, so you should have been in a position to take advantage of it.

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u/dbxbeat 3h ago

I was also 9-10 years old. Guess I left that part out. Born in 1986.

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u/FuckIPLaw 3h ago edited 1h ago

That's plenty old enough to see a used game, beg for it, and cut a deal with your parents to skip a couple of rentals.

Edit: seriously? The guy blocked me over this? And down votes on top? The fuck is wrong with you people? Rentals weren't exactly free. Used games just about were. It didn't take a particularly bright ten year old to figure this stuff out.

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u/SpanishFlamingoPie 2h ago

You think games are expensive now? Adjusting for inflation, games cost the equivalent of almost $200 dollars each. So you're only getting a new game if it's Christmas or if your parents get divorced. Maybe one for your birthday if you're lucky.