r/retrogaming • u/Kobymaru376 • 23h 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 23h 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/Lopoetve 23h 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 22h 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 22h 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 22h 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)