The Humbling Experience of Nostalgia Gaming

Nostalgia: a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations 

In a market full of remakes, those of us from the days of ancient systems find ourselves wanting for long lost Saturday mornings. We wish for the simple times of fast two button action in which to send your enemies to their pixelated DOOM! And some publishers obliged to our memories by releasing various forms of graphic and handling updates while keeping the original “it” factor alive. But, have you played any of them? Are you still as good as you remember? Are you sure you were ever that good?

I have always kept my favorite games in my library pending availability. But, my gaming from the past mostly consisted of turn based RPGs and the adventures of a certain blue hedgehog. There can only be so much you can do with games like that. And my skills were still intact even though my map knowledge had faded. So, why wouldn’t Capcom's Mega Man collections be any different? After all, I owned the Doc many times over as a kid. 

Turns out, I suck at Mega Man again. Like, total noobage suckfest kind of bad. Levels I used to fly through now stop me a quarter of the way in. I struggled for hours before my first boss fight. Then I died. Again. To the sounds of my son laughing at my failures, claiming to prove he could do better than me because, “It’s easy”.

Mega Man 2 destroyed his confidence in approximately fifteen minutes. The rest of his experience was full of frustration and dying determination to just finish one level. I immediately recalled one of those Saturday mornings, trying to learn the game, just desperate to succeed where so many of my friends had already. Why couldn’t I just beat one freaking boss??? 

Turns out, games were just ruthless back in the “good old days” and we, as gamers, rose to the occasion or stopped playing. The more I asked around, the more answers I got balancing between "I got good” to “I played something else”. I had not been the only one to struggle but I had been one of the few from my collection of friends and associates to fight through the struggle and “Git Gud”. 

Another friend pointed out that games have gotten easier in recent times to allow for more players to enjoy the game, not destroy their souls. It took the tears of a child to open my eyes to all the times I had to choose how easy or difficult of a game experience I really wanted all this time. Games these days cater to our desires to see the full story and not be stopped by impossible odds in the last section of the game. Either games were just brutal or we have softened up to the point of no return. 

Turns out, games were just hard. Git Gud Scrub!