My personal opinion is that it is dependent on intended audience. The games made today are aiming for the 'general' public and as I am sure we all know the 'general' public is not the 'gamer' audience. In the past 'gamers' were the majority of the audience and this meant that the game's difficulty was made for those who were more familiar with the games. Now with it aiming at the 'non-gamer' audience the difficulty is lowered so as to broaden the horizons.

This is of course all very general observations. Not all games of either time period fit the molds I have presumed.

The simple answer to this is to make difficulty modes. Such as easy, normal, and hard modes. You can even add in a 'gamer' mode, like Capcom's U.N. Squadron had, to be a superb challenge. This is better than just making super tough side bosses like they currently due, because the game is tougher all the way through becoming more enjoyable for many of us.



To comment on the Final Fantasy Difficulty. I believe the suggested difficulty was wrong. Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy V for example are harder than either Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy Vi; however, Final Fantasy VI is about on par to the newer ones when it comes to difficulty. Actually, VI may even be easier than VII and Vi. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love VI and think it is the second[with only Final Fantasy Tactics being better] or third[Final Fantasy V can give it quite the run] best final fantasy. However, that doesn't change the fact that it is very easy.

Hmmmmmmmm i think that older games were a lot harder but also simpler (what ive played). I found they just need a lot more percervience as often there were no save points and very few lives. when i play the games now its even more difficult as im used to controls on games to be smooth and for it to be fast and easy to get where you want, but playin older games most have much less control and so are difficult to get used to.

I'm a gamer and yeah, I believe old games are tougher than today's game. Today's game are too 'dumbed' down as we'd say, made too simple so that the people who buy it will be content with being able to beat it.

Back in the days, the older games weren't made to make people necessarily happy, but to challenge them. So when you actually beated them, you felt damn proud (I remember how proud I was when I was a 11 year old kid and I finished load runner, cool old school game). Old games was all about perfect timing and quick perceptions throughout gameplay. Modern games now are easier, I mean, you got the people already telling you where to do, weak spots, etc... Back in the days you had to find everything out by yourself...ah yes...old games...simply the best XD

From reading all this, games of today have become easier because of the general public and some non-base gamer fans of today to play games more than ever today, then back then.

Coming to a, retrospective conclusion, maybe the games of a long time ago had the same basis of just attacking and leveling up. I'm talking from a person who has played RPGs than any other genre. Games from, way back when, I think, were harder, but because of the long battles sqeunces made the game longer just make let the game go on longer. Like some people have said they were made for people who played videos. Today I hear people from gaming stores that when they bought some games that have just came out they say the have beaten the game in like 12 hours. Maybe the reason why games a long time ago were harder because the games had long battle squneces than today.

I have played Kingdom Hearts 1 and when playing it for the first time took me three months without a guide to play and in hard mode too. When KH2 came out I rented it to play the storyline and played it in easy mode just to get through it and return it on time. When I played it I was expecting maybe at least a 2 weeks to finish the game in easy mode, but to my amazement it took me only three days and 8 hours a day to beat the game. I was shocked at how easy it was to beat the game. I couldn't believe it.

Then after playing only PS2 made games and rarely had a chance to buy PS1 games. I decided to play the old RPGs from a long time ago and started with FFVII & Vi to start. And man it was a whole new experince. I love the storylines of the games, but playing those games the battle system was time consuming. The makers probably did that just to give players a sense to keep going but made the game drone on just to have the game have maybe 80 some hours to beat the game. But from plying older games they were different from today because I still haven't beaten those games yet, and still hoping to finish the story.

Older games are much, much harder than new ones. There are exceptions I guess, but in general, games used to be alot more brutal, and cheap. Now days, they make games more friendly, so you can play the game and actually get decently far into it, and not want to murder something. They still have their difficult moments, but they space out the difficulty more, train you up more, or give you a near by save point.

NES had alot of games that were probably next to impossible. Where you have to play absouletly perfect, or you die. Any mistake you ever make, you are punished with death. You don't get saving points. You have to perfect this game, or you are gonna die on level 1. Very very frustrating to go back now and play games like that.

Games used to be way harder than some of the "hard" games now... Take a look at the new Ninja Gaiden. It wasn't even close to how hard the old ones were...

The old ones are much more difficult that the present ones. before the form with which the programmers doing that their games were played per hours was make difficult, the time of game now extends with extras and things to collect.

The difficult game that I played it was the first Zelda of Nes, not as much by puzzles or enemis but by the complicated thing of the mapping.

A majority of the older games are much harder than the newer ones. For instance, Syphon Filter 1 and 2. I'm not bagging on this game, or anything but for the time it was a great game, but you know, sneaking around was so frustrating because you almost have to be exact when your hiding and sometimes enemies just "KNOW" your right there behind the corner without even thinking it. Then there the old RPGs like Advanced Dungeons & Dragons was so time consuming and boring, it's not fun at all... you pretty much run around everywhere at random until you find a person that will give you your item/object/thing you need to finish the Quest and thus making very hard (in terms of it consumes so much of your time doing something that seems totally pointless).

New games today are probably easier since first of all, psychics are much better, enemies or AI in video games are much, much more improved to which they act smarter and they don't "know" where you are as soon as you are in an area. But of course you can turn up the difficulty setting, which in not many old games you could, but even with the harder difficulty it's hard but for some games, just wasn't hard enough (No not talking about games like DMC and such T_T). So yeah, hands down, old games were harder by majority.

I do think that older games are way more of a challenge than newer ones. Of course, there are some exceptions to this, such as Valkaryie profile 2 being really difficult if you do not know what you are doing/are not high level in certain parts, but for the most part, yes, the challenge of new and old games are not even close to being of comparable difficulty.

Older games are alot harder since there is less save point and less detail into graphics that they put alot if effort into making harder, random puzzles that require alot more skill. Nowadays if you are stuck on a puzzle or problem (which says alot imo since most puzzles have gotten alot easier since everything is focused on gameplay and graphics) there are always online forums and faqs that people go online for. People dont play games for the challenge anymore, they play for the game experience which is not a bad thing but alot of older games are alot much harder

Well one thing to keep in mind is that in the old days it was all about coin ops and stuff...in before consoles became popular

they had to find a way to keep you coming back and play more and only way to do that was strip you of you ammo, mana watever and GIVE US MORE MONEY and you can play

if they made it easy then well its like walking through half life with god mode...not really long then is it?

it's just the marketing tecqnique used back then i ithnk...ofcourse it dosent go for all games

games like metal slug, ghould and ghosts were damn hard...im talking about the later stages

I still can't beat Super Mario Bros. 1. Well, I might never get the chance to finish it... I'm gonna miss it. But there are some games that are hard. Like Gran Turismo series, can't remember the rest, sorry.

Most games in the Mid 80s to 1999 are something out of league in difficulty compare to new standard games on sale today Thats because todays standards determinate that a game that only sell just for some players its just a waste of money for the company so they made then easier for non gamers.

That way they get more sales and more profit they get money and we get caveman friendly games with super graphics for the price of a super charged game.

Some designers (Like Bongie and Square Enix) beat that crazy standard by giving a deep storyline, give multi difficulty options or both
but in most cases that just make the game a very short game play time or a drastic sacrifice of it's replay value.

I still remember the times then a RPG was so hard, you spend 6 hour per day in front of the TV just to get a pinch of the storyline. It take me up to one moth to end Chrono Triger and Chrono Cross only get me a mere one week (6 hours per day basis)

Yeah, tha games from the 80's and 90's are tought, the Zelda games of NES, SNES and GB are tought than the ones in NGC, GCN and Wii. It's due the gameplay.

Yeah I do think that old games are far more harder than the new ones... First because in most of them you didn't have the option to save the game or you have few continues... So if you wanted to beat the game you really need to master it to do it ..
Nowadays you can save your progress and restart form the save point but in the good old days it was really frustrating that you were in the final battle and the boss beat you in an instant... so you would have to restart the game from the first level...making them harder than most of the new games... but we all loved them!