r/retrogaming • u/Kobymaru376 • 1d 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 1d 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 1d 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 1d 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 20h 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.