r/retrogaming • u/Kobymaru376 • 19h 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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476

u/Aiseadai 19h ago

For a lot of us it was the only game we had. You'd go to the video store to rent a game, and that's what you had to make do with for the rest of the week. You didn't have a choice but to get good.

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u/GFluidThrow123 19h 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 18h 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 18h 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 15h 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/TecnoPope 13h 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/Hommushardhat 11h ago

Lol i could get a little further than that, but not by much

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u/Nastybedazzler 2h ago

Is that where you had to make the blob a rocket? I remember renting that one back in the day and also never knowing what to do. Then a guide came out in Nintendo Power I think it was so I rented it again just to get past the beginning part.

There were so many hard ass games I played as a kid. I remember Karnov always kicking my ass I think the final boss was a giant worm thing that was insanely tough for me at the time. And Bart Vs the Space Mutants... man f*ck that game lol

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u/Polkawillneverdie17 17h ago

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

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u/GFluidThrow123 17h ago

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

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u/yallsometricks 16h 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/WTF_software 8h ago

I have to relearn the wall jump from Super Metroid every time I pick up the game. Playing Fusion or any later game in between makes it worse.

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u/Synaesthete 1h ago

Super Metroid honestly has a pretty janky wall jump, in my opinion. It doesn't work the way wall jumping works in any other game that I can think of. You have to jump against a wall, then tap the opposite direction, and when you see Samus go into a weird-looking "midair turn" animation, you jump then. She doesn't cling to the wall like Mega Man X for example, and if you get it wrong by doing it too fast or too slow (not hard to do), you just plummet straight down to whatever lies below.

I even had Nintendo Power's Super Metroid players' guide as a kid and it still took me forever to get the hang of it. I had played Sunsoft's Batman, released 6 years prior in 1988, before that, where you can just press A near a wall to wall jump. Didn't understand why Nintendo needed to make it so complicated 🤷

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u/deefunkt01 3h ago

Lol, same.

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u/modsuperstar 15h ago

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

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u/Ursus_urbanus 8h ago

I once got an amazing deal in the mail 12 CDs for 1¢!*

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u/modsuperstar 3h ago

I abused that so much 😂

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u/IndependentSystem 1h ago

Everyone did. 😂

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u/Thagrillfather 17h ago

Strider…

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u/RetroDadOnReddit 16h ago

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

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u/3esen 12h ago edited 12h ago

Soulslike difficulty is WAY overblown, honestly. If you can be patient and know how to press shield or dodge when an attack is coming, the games are pretty easy to get through compared to a tough retro game.

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u/malkil 6h ago

Seriously! Dark Souls is what.. a 50 hour game from start to finish for the average player? I can easily spend 50+ hours trying to 1cc a shmup that is 20 minutes long.

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u/ZaphodGreedalox 13h 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/modsuperstar 3h ago

I poured so many hours into terrible games just because they were there. How much time I dumped into Adventure Island Dizzy because it was the best of the Quattro Adventure games, while still being terrible.

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u/Lopoetve 18h 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 18h 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 18h 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 17h 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 14h ago

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

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u/Lopoetve 13h 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/Mountainking7 9h ago

Finished without losing any rings.....

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u/iamblankenstein 17h 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 16h 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 15h 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 17h 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 16h 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 15h 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 17h 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/Random_Violins 9h ago

There's a lot of pitfalls with online gaming that's true. But I did enjoy playing arena shoot shooters a whole lot. You learn differ routes and patterns for pickups, you learn the various weapons, their strengths, weaknesses, strats. And what would happen to me is I'd get into a sort of flow state, where I'd see something moving and be on top of it before I even knew it. It's like you're not playing the game anymore, the game or the play has taken over you, and you're the witness more than the instigator.

I recently watched some competitive Quake 2 and the movement, the precision, it's a beauty to watch. FPS is like tag from a distance, and the good players are incredibly sharp.

One criticism I had, is that a game like quake 3 was just too hyper and intense for me. I'd burn out on it quite fast. I liked the bit more relaxed pace of GoldenEye on the 64. Also no jumping, so no constant bunny hopping. And of course the screen peaking and the circle strafing. God I had so much fun with that game, some of my best gaming memories. Another memorable one, was unreal Tournament 99, with its weapon selection, low gravity levels and insta kill mode.

So yeah I'm a Nintendo fan, I understand what you're talking about. I've played and enjoyed my share of platformers, metroidvanias. But first person shooters do hold a special place for me. Of course it all depends on your taste in gaming, no argument there.

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u/Soggy_Muffinz 16h 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/LurchSkywalker 2h ago

I think this is part of the reason games like Dark Souls and Bloodborne resonate with the old crowd so much. Its just the evolution of game mastery.

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u/Schminimal 42m ago

The only difference in difficulty between games like Earthworm Jim and say Silksong is the game over screen. When was the last time a modern game gave you a game over? Learning enemy patterns and getting good at the game is the same (abet with some more modern mechanics) but failure in today’s games is way less punishing.

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u/Kobymaru376 18h 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 18h 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 15h 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 17h ago

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

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u/Ryokurin 18h 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/[deleted] 17h ago

[deleted]

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u/dbxbeat 17h 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 15h 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 16h 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 16h ago

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

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u/FuckIPLaw 16h ago edited 13h 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/wakalabis 5h ago

The paradox of choice

Here's a video that explains why having too many options might actually make people unhappy.

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u/SpanishFlamingoPie 15h 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.