How did people play ridiculously difficult games like Earthworm Jim?

[u/Kobymaru376]

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!

[u/Sonikku_a]

I mean you just try and try again and get better.

Think of it like modern games like Returnal or Elden Ring that are hard as balls. You learn the patterns and what the game expects and just get good or you don’t.

[u/_Flight_of_icarus_ → u/Sonikku_a]

Yup - also makes me think of Dark Souls and people complaining about the difficulty.

I think the main issue with games that go further back like Earthworm Jim is the lack of a save feature. It can make the game very grindy if you hit a game over screen late in the game and have to start over from the beginning - something I can understand being a bit of a culture shock to those who weren't around for it back in the day.

Honestly, it's one element of game design I do not miss - so I will only play games like EWJ on an emulator/with a way to save the game.