Uploaded July 2025 | Updated September 2026, 33 minutes ago
Hard video games have been a thing for as long as video games have been around. But today, it feels like a lot of games are just a bit too easy. So in this video, I discuss why video games used to be harder (remember NES hard and arcade games stealing your quarters?) as well as why games need to be hard even today.
Note: This is my first time editing in Kdenlive. There are still some things I'm learning how to do, but it is at least working on my Linux PC unlike OpenShot.
00:00 Intro
00:39 The Role Of Arcades In Making Hard Games
03:13 Why Home Console Games Used To Be Hard
06:04 The Competitive Gamers That Seek Challenges
07:56 Failure Is The Greatest Teacher
Sources/Further Reading:
thatshelf.com/the-restart-ecco-the-dolphin-1
geniuscrate.com/the-science-behind-game-difficulty-why-we-love-a-challenge
polygon.com/24023080/tetris-record-kill-screen-beat-nes-blue-scuti
polygon.com/features/2013/1/9/3848592/total-carnage-confusing-ending
@Chinopolis playthrough of Tatsujin Ou and his commentary video with @AKTANEARCADE:
youtube.com/watch?v=bhWNlIHPgp4&t
youtu.be/qdLZ0y0xc0U?si=21SJ84U8svejD9O6
Hard video games have been a thing for as long as video games have been around. But today, it feels like a lot of games are just a bit too easy. So in this video, I discuss why video games used to be harder (remember NES hard and arcade games stealing your quarters?) as well as why games need to be hard even today.
Note: This is my first time editing in Kdenlive. There are still some things I'm learning how to do, but it is at least working on my Linux PC unlike OpenShot.
00:00 Intro
00:39 The Role Of Arcades In Making Hard Games
03:13 Why Home Console Games Used To Be Hard
06:04 The Competitive Gamers That Seek Challenges
07:56 Failure Is The Greatest Teacher
Sources/Further Reading:
thatshelf.com/the-restart-ecco-the-dolphin-1
geniuscrate.com/the-science-behind-game-difficulty-why-we-love-a-challenge
polygon.com/24023080/tetris-record-kill-screen-beat-nes-blue-scuti
polygon.com/features/2013/1/9/3848592/total-carnage-confusing-ending
@Chinopolis playthrough of Tatsujin Ou and his commentary video with @AKTANEARCADE:
youtube.com/watch?v=bhWNlIHPgp4&t
youtu.be/qdLZ0y0xc0U?si=21SJ84U8svejD9O6
![Downwell [PC/iOS] - One Of The Best Indie Games Ever Made](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/eq6ccKsAuMA/mqdefault.jpg "Downwell [PC/iOS] - One Of The Best Indie Games Ever Made
Downwell is one of the best indie games Ive ever played, and I finally beat it on Standard mode. In this video, Ill break down the game in detail from presentation to gameplay mechanics. Ill discuss my strategies for beating the game, since I beat it recently. Its part review, part commentary, and should provide good tips for newcomers.
The gameplay footage is from my clear of the Standard mode. I used the Lavender palette, one of my favorites.
00:00 Intro
01:26 Discussing Graphics And Sound
04:05 Gameplay Basics And Stages
10:55 Key Gameplay Mechanics
16:51 My Approach To Playing Downwell
Music:
Duff Egan - Intention Experiment
Buy Downwell:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/360740/Downwell/
https://www.gog.com/game/downwell
https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/downwell-switch/
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/downwell/id1032708262
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.devolver.downwell_rerelease
https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/downwell/9p641z19nt2s
https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP3643-CUSA04550_00-DOWNWELLUSP40001/
Downwell Achievement Stats:
https://steamhunters.com/apps/360740/achievements
Downwell Mega Guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=537123243")
![Griffin [Sega Game Gear] - ALL Clear 68,900 pts (Full Game)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/f7QqRT9IpeA/mqdefault.jpg "Griffin [Sega Game Gear] - ALL Clear 68,900 pts (Full Game)
Griffin is a run n gun/shmup released for the Game Gear exclusively in Japan in 1991, published by Renovation Game and developed by Telnet Japan. This game was known for being kind of expensive on the second-hand market, but it recently got re-released on modern consoles and Steam.
Honestly, once people get to play this one, theyll realize that its way too easy for a run n gun. Even a more casual players should be able to chew through this game without many continues. Gameplay-wise, I would compare it to Jackal on NES but more cramped. It is very generous with pickups, whether it be powerups, extra health, bombs, or even extra lives. You can take quite a few hits before dying.
It allows you to switch between three weapons: a regular shot, a sub shot that fires over walls, as well as a special weapon that fires slowly but is very powerful and has splash damage from the explosion. The regular shot is the only one that can fire in all eight directions as it lines up with your movement.
There is a vertical shmup stage in Stage 3 of the first loop, but that stage gets cut from the second and final loop and honestly, its pretty weak anyway. Thankfully, its even easier than the normal tank stages.
Speaking of the second loop, its hardly any different from the first loop outside of the shmup stage missing and the final stage having different enemy placement.
The controls felt good overall, but having to pause to switch weapons killed the pace quite a bit at times. The graphics are solid, especially for an early Game Gear game. The cramped perspective didnt turn out as badly as I had expected.
For an older handheld game, you could do a lot worse than this one.
Also, the video quality is a bit lower than usual by accident, but I still feel like it came out alright after watching it myself.
Steam link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3387410/Griffin/
Switch release: https://www.nintendo.com/us/store/products/griffin-switch/
PS4 release: https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/EP0896-PPSA26109_00-GRIFFINRATAGAMES
00:00 Intro
00:11 Stage 1-1
03:24 Stage 1-2
06:31 Stage 1-3
10:00 Stage 1-4
16:06 Stage 2-1
19:48 Stage 2-2
23:41 Final Stage")
![Pole Position II [Gamecube/Arcade] - Suzuka/Wonder 1st ALL Clear 54870 pts (Namco Museum)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/f_2JemsSwXI/mqdefault.jpg "Pole Position II [Gamecube/Arcade] - Suzuka/Wonder 1st ALL Clear 54870 pts (Namco Museum)
Played on Namco Museum with default difficulty/time settings using the Dolphin emulator.
Pole Position II often gets overshadowed by its predecessor, probably because it has not been included in as many Namco compilations as the original. It is also perceived as being almost identical to the original, which appears to be true on first glance but is not entirely the case when you dig deeper.
Pole Position II stands out to me for a couple of reasons. One, it has more courses than just one. The original Fuji/Namco circuit is back, but there are three new courses as well. Two, it has some hidden extra mechanics that add depth to the racing. The game tries to simulate the effects of tire temperatures in a rudimentary manner. If you hold the accelerator long enough before the green light, youll take off with some squealing sounds, but youll also accelerate faster as a result, i.e. the tires getting warm. Also, you can exploit the gears after that to give yourself another acceleration boost, which also leads to you hit higher top speeds than otherwise.
As far as the courses go, Suzuka (renamed Wonder for licensing reasons) is the hardest course along with Seaside (Long Beach). Some of these curves are legitimately tricky with the primitive handling that carried over from the original, and the oil slicks are in well-placed spots to interfere with your racing lines and drop your speed more than they did in the original. Plus, the AI is even nastier with plenty of evil RNG in terms of where theyll be on the course, though where youll encounter them also depends on how well you are driving in the first place. One last thing is that pole position is difficult to achieve. This was not my best qualifying by any means, but Ive never gotten pole before on this course even with a time of 54.7 seconds. However, second place in qualifying is definitely achievable for sure.
Combine all that and you get one of the hardest courses in arcade racing history. I imagine Seaside is just as hard if not worse with its sharp corners.")
![Kiki KaiKai [Arcade] - First Loop 1CC 292,300 pts](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/gEbMVNBugH4/mqdefault.jpg "Kiki KaiKai [Arcade] - First Loop 1CC 292,300 pts
Before there was Pocky And Rocky on SNES, there was KiKi KaiKai. Originally developed and released by Taito back in 1986, this game originated in Japanese arcades and may have been Taitos answer to Commando, albeit with a completely different setting and distinctly Japanese themes. By the time the SNES was around, Natsume got permission from Taito to make a sequel to this game, which led to the Pocky And Rocky series that has a little bit of a following to this day among hardcore retro gamers. The first Pocky And Rocky in North America is Kiki KaiKai II in Japan.
Kiki KaiKai is a run and gun with a top-down perspective, like Commando as mentioned before. It stars Sayo-Chan, a shrine maiden who has to rescue seven Japanese deities from evil yokai spirits. She would become better known as Pocky in the Pocky And Rocky series in North America. She can throw either her Ofuda with Button II to attack enemies, which you will use most often, or use her purification rod with Button I up close on just about anything except for bosses. Her Ofuda can be powered up in a few different ways, the most common being increased range via the light blue Ofuda pickups. The red ones give you a piercing shot, the yellow one gives you a bigger projectile and is probably the best powerup overall, and the blue ones (two together) increase your shot speed. You can also obtain a blue crystal that will freeze time or a yellow one that clears the screen when used. You can use these crystals by pressing buttons I and II at the same time. These crystals are usually hidden in front of small statues while the weapon powerups come from lanterns that you shoot.
You can get a rice ball that gives you 2,000 points each. You can also grab a Gohei to give you an extend if you shoot a lantern when the last three digits of your score are all zeros. Most of the pickups are otherwise determined by RNG, which can make life a bit hard early on, but you should be able to get whatever you need over the course of a run. Some items are also completely hidden and are meant to be found by randomly shooting at certain spots that appear to have nothing there.
As far as the gameplay goes, the stages are short but packed with challenge. Each loop is eight stages, but each stage is less than 2 minutes long, depending how fast or slow you get through them. The levels here are especially good at forcing you to move in different directions instead of just having the screen scroll up. There are plenty of enemies on screen and the game does a great job of keeping you on your toes. If you dont keep the screen moving, the game will spawn enemies in order to get you to move. There is a little bit of RNG at times with the enemy spawns as well. There is a rank system where if you grab too many of the light blue Ofuda pickups, youll increase the hitpoints of bosses making them take longer to kill. Dying resets this, and the Gradius Syndrome is not too bad here. You do power down but if you have external autofire, youre not out of it at all and youre given the chance to get a weapon pickup right away.
The first couple of stages are easy, but the challenge does pick up quickly from there. With the exception of the final stage of the loop, each stage ends with a boss fight, many of which can be speedkilled with the right strategy along with external autofire. Fun fact: Stage 7s boss is Manuke, aka Rocky from later games. Stage 4 of the loop is probably the toughest of the stages overall but the other stages cannot be overlooked either, like the later stages that feature quite a bit of water that the player is not allowed to touch.
The final stage of the loop throws a bit of a curveball as the player has to find three hidden scrolls in order to finish the stage and get to the ending and if you dont, the stages continues on infinitely. Once you know where the scrolls are, which are not RNG based thankfully, this stage becomes pretty easy for a final stage.
Overall, I love this game. Ive heard this game is pretty hard as even Perikles has this game as a 17 on his classic arcade shooter difficulty tierlist, ahead of games like Strikers 1945 and Gradius II, but I didnt think this game was that bad. Its only the second overhead run and gun that Ive cleared, with the other being Commando which I discussed in a previous video, but that probably helped me by getting me used to the type of movement these games feature.
Played in MAME via RetroArch. 25 HZ autofire was used, courtesy of my Brook PCB.
00:00 Intro
00:27 Scene 1
01:52 Scene 2
03:30 Scene 3
05:41 Scene 4
07:47 Scene 5
09:47 Scene 6
12:24 Scene 7
14:42 Scene 8 and Ending
16:23 Loop 2
#kikikaikai #retrogaming #arcadegames #taito")
![Alpine Ski [Arcade] - Six Loop 1CC 162,876 pts (MAME)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/gVqEh4i_DFM/mqdefault.jpg "Alpine Ski [Arcade] - Six Loop 1CC 162,876 pts (MAME)
This is my new personal best run in Alpine Ski, as this is my first time getting to Loop 7 and my first time scoring more than 160,000 points. My previous commented run only got up to Loop 6 and also had a final score that was over 44,000 points lower.
This is also my first notable accomplishment on my new mixbox setup. I took my Qanba Crystal and modded with the T-Spin to turn it into a mixbox. I think its better than playing it on controller, which is what I was doing prior. Its even better than your average keyboard since it uses mechanical key switches. I plan to use it a lot for non-shmup arcade games and games that I would normally play on D-Pad with a controller.
Also, there is some audio popping here and there, but thats from the emulator.
00:00 Intro
00:11 Loop 1
02:14 Loop 2
04:22 Loop 3
06:21 Loop 4
08:26 Loop 5
10:29 Loop 6
13:06 Loop 7 (7-1)")
![Shikigami No Shiro II [Gamecube] - Kuga2 1CC 3,552,501,510 pts](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/guBR5QnH22M/mqdefault.jpg "Shikigami No Shiro II [Gamecube] - Kuga2 1CC 3,552,501,510 pts
Shikigami No Shiro II, also known as Castle Shikigami 2, is a bullet hell shmup created by Alfa Systems and was originally released in Japanese arcades in 2003 and was ported to the PS2, Gamecube, Xbox, Dreamcast, and PC soon after. The PS2 version was given an incredibly bad translation job when it was released in the West and was the only Western release until the PC version got a remaster and was re-released on Steam back in 2021. A Switch version based on this recent re-release will come out in April.
This game, like the first game in the series, known for its high tension system consisting of getting close to enemy bullets in order to increase your scoring multiplier and increase your damage output, i.e. grazing. You also have a sub weapon known as your Shikigami attack, which differs from character to character and scores more points because you get more coins. Also, the more coins you gather, the more each coin is worth.
The seven characters available have their own unique playstyles and also have an alternate version of their Shikigami attack to select if you like, adding more variation to the gameplay. You have to learn each characters playstyle in order to survive and score. Youll need to score a bit to get extends, which are offered first after 400 million and every other extend every 700 million points. Youll need the extends to make up for mistakes and get extra bombs, but you can only hold a max of 3 lives at a time and 5 bombs.
This game doesnt start out so hard, but it gets pretty brutal after 3-2 and demands nothing for consistency and good strategies in order to get to the end. The bullet patterns in general are very dense here, some of the densest youll ever see. Even playing with Kuga, who is known for being one of the best characters for survival and one of the easiest to score with, this is still one of the hardest clears Ive done yet. Because you cant stockpile extends like you can in many other shmups, you have to stay pretty consistent through your run in order to not run out of lives later in the game. I almost ended my run with a couple of mistakes in the second phase of the 5-1 boss.
This is definitely one of the most rewarding shmups Ive ever played, despite this clear taking a while to earn. The level design is absolutely superb and the amount of scoring depth is mindblowing. However, its also simple to understand because it mostly comes down to high tension grazing and killing as many things with your Shikigami attack as possible while getting really close to bullets. Its high risk, high reward gameplay and its absolutely brilliant.
One other thing thats not clear from this run that makes this game interesting is the amount of storyline in this series as a whole. Im playing this run without the dialogue because its in Japanese and I cant read Japanese, but there are storylines, which is unusual for the genre. If you play the Steam version, youll get the dialogue properly translated unlike the infamous English translation of the PS2 version. I already had the Gamecube version prior to the Steam release, so I just stuck to playing it in Dolphin.
00:00 Intro
00:38 Stage 1-1
02:43 Stage 1-2
04:56 Stage 2-1
07:07 Stage 2-2
09:25 Stage 3-1
12:07 Stage 3-2
14:47 Stage 4-1
17:12 Stage 4-2
19:42 Stage 5-1
23:33 Stage 5-2 (Final Boss)
26:44 Credits
28:38 Final Score and Stats")
