9 Retro Game Elements That Would Crush Today's Youth

If you grew up in the 80's or early 90's, chances are you've played some games on the 8-bit and 16-bit consoles. With that said, you're probably well aware that some of those games were fucking HARD. And we're not talking "oh no, I have to start at the last checkpoint?!" - no, we're talking "shit, I'm out of continues, BACK TO THE BEGINNING OF THE FUCKING GAME"

1. Shitty Jump Arcs

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Starting off with a doozy. Some games had highly committal jump arcs where you better be damn sure that you're going to land where you need to be. This isn't Halo where you can somehow move in midair, this is the 8-bit era, the era of video games that hate children.

2. No Difficulty Options

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Push Start Button to play. What's that? You wanted to put it on easy mode? There is no easy mode - you get normal, and you'll like it. Oh you wanted to play the second quest? Yeah, that's hard mode. There's no "Beginner, Easy, Normal, Hard" in these games, there's hard, harder, and go fuck yourself.

3. Obnoxious Enemy Placement

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So you have to make an already difficult jump. That platform is just 1 pixel close enough for you to land on it, so you leap into the air with confidence, as an enemy spawns off screen beneath you and proceeds to jump up and bite your taint. You take damage, and fall into the pit. Try again. This happens over, and over, and over, and over, and over again.

4. One Hit Death

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When Bill Rizer or Lance Bean get hit with a bullet, their screen doesn't turn red and tell them to hide for 5 seconds and they'll feel perfectly fine, they fucking DIE. And die a lot. You have to have some fancy footwork and killer reaction time to stay alive in the run and gun shooters of yesteryear, because Konami hates you, and they don't give a single shit how you feel about it.

5. Limited (severely) Lives and Continues

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YES! You've made it to the second to last level, you already used your continues and you have 1 life left. You graze a stray bullet. Game over. You heard it - 3 lives, 3 continues, if that. Games required you to learn, adapt, and recognize patterns. Nowadays, all you have to do is follow the tutorial as you play, and you're good to go! Which leads to the next point...

6. No Tutorials

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Where do I go? What do I do? Why can't I kill this enemy?! Hudson Soft would like to politely say "figure it out yourself, asshole." Many times you'd pop in a game cartridge, turn on the console, press start, and you'd be thrown into the mix. Video games were sink or swim - you either figured it out and beat it, or you died and lost. CONSTANTLY.

7. No Save Points

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You see that? That glowing icon of beauty? That's the save point from Final Fantasy 7, and represents the fact that you've worked hard enough to earn keeping your place in the game. Years ago, that son of a bitch didn't exist, and if you didn't complete the game in ONE sitting, you just took a hard left down Beat Street, because you're fucked.

8. Nasty Boss Patterns

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The bosses don't have glowing body parts to tell you what to shoot, nor do they have many visual cues to let you know to get the hell out of the way, or to dash, or to-HOLY SHIT I'M IN ITS FUCKING MOUTH. You better learn to recognize patterns, and quickly, otherwise, you're going to get your ass handed to you.

9. Twitch Platforming

These platforms are coming quick, and you better not fall into that lava! Unless you have the reaction time of a man who either A.) lives perpetually in the Matrix, or B.) Grew up playing Konami and Capcom platformers, you're going to take a dirt nap.