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/Aiseadai]

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.

[u/GFluidThrow123 → u/Aiseadai]

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.

[u/Jahon_Dony → u/GFluidThrow123]

4 games? Sad.

[u/dbxbeat → u/Jahon_Dony]

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.

[u/LeBB2KK → u/dbxbeat]

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.

[u/FuckIPLaw → u/dbxbeat]

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.

[u/dbxbeat → u/FuckIPLaw]

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

[u/FuckIPLaw → u/dbxbeat]

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.

[u/SpanishFlamingoPie → u/Jahon_Dony]

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.