Kids of Today Struggling with Super Metroid

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

Yeah, you can argue this about anything really. I mean, I look up how to do all kinds of crap all the time. From tying a tie to cooking a steak. Does this mean I'm less intelligent than people who learned these things differently in a pre-internet era? I don't think so. If anything, our ability to find answers faster and easier should lead to the biggest jump in mankind's everyday functionality since the advent of the written word.

[wildbil52]

I'm not saying that the internet hasn't revolutionized the way we do almost everything.  It has, and mostly for the better. 

I just think that discovery is a huge part of interactive entertainment and that being told the answer takes away the joy of figuring it out for yourself.  This most recently happened to me while playing Limbo.  I ended up getting stuck on a puzzle, tried for a bit, couldn't figure it out, and I looked up the answer.  I was immediately mad at myself for not seeing the solution and for robbing myself of the joy of discovering the secret to the puzzle.

I would not look up the solutions to any other puzzle in the game and whenever I recommended it to friends, I told them to solve each puzzle on their own.

Again, not making a judgement on anyone who decides to look something up, just an observation.

[techwizard]

I'm not saying that the internet hasn't revolutionized the way we do almost everything.  It has, and mostly for the better. 

I just think that discovery is a huge part of interactive entertainment and that being told the answer takes away the joy of figuring it out for yourself.  This most recently happened to me while playing Limbo.  I ended up getting stuck on a puzzle, tried for a bit, couldn't figure it out, and I looked up the answer.  I was immediately mad at myself for not seeing the solution and for robbing myself of the joy of discovering the secret to the puzzle.

I would not look up the solutions to any other puzzle in the game and whenever I recommended it to friends, I told them to solve each puzzle on their own.

Again, not making a judgement on anyone who decides to look something up, just an observation.

i tend to look up the answers if it feels like i've tried literally everything the game offers as an item or ability, with no results. i definitely give it my best before going to the web though. i've seen some people go to a walkthrough right at the start of a game and say they just want to see the end and that's all that matters to them. those people make me mad, they should stick to movies.

[Cobra]

I do think it was a special time playing pre-internet games. Shining Wisdom has a special place in my memory purely for the fact I was stuck in the game for half a year. I was completely stuck at the Sand Labyrinth. I even restarted the game multiple times in case I had missed something. I checked out this Labyrinth so thoroughly I even found a bug that let me walk on walls before finding the solution. Plus before the net & growing up there was less to do so games got more undivided attention I found.

[JerryGreenwood]

Older gamers and younger gamers are completely different and it's mostly due to the internet.

I refuse to look at a guide unless it's completely hopeless (i.e. Castlevania 2). Older gamers were also trained to "figure it out yourself". That's the beauty of a video game for most of us.

Imagine a younger gamer playing The Legend of Zelda without any guidance aside from the map and manual that came with the game. That gamer is on gamefaqs or looking for a youtube walkthrough within 5 minutes or the game is turned off, never to be played again and is instead playing a game that holds your hand.

Edit - Let's put it this way. I can cruise through a game like Borderlands 2 in my sleep. A 9 year old has no chance at beating Rygar. Not because a younger gamer is less intelligent or skilled, but because they would never have the determination.

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Wait, Zelda CAME WITH A MAP?
...yeah, I never had manuals with games as a kid since all of my NES titles were cartridge only (2nd hand flea market). Zelda was fun to stumble into things on though.

[techwizard]

Wait, Zelda CAME WITH A MAP?
...yeah, I never had manuals with games as a kid since all of my NES titles were cartridge only (2nd hand flea market). Zelda was fun to stumble into things on though.

original final fantasy had a map too

[SirPsycho]

Wait, Zelda CAME WITH A MAP?
...yeah, I never had manuals with games as a kid since all of my NES titles were cartridge only (2nd hand flea market). Zelda was fun to stumble into things on though.

original final fantasy had a map too

Tons of games have maps.

[Fleach]

Bringing up those maps is an interesting point. As far as I know, and I may be wrong, these maps were included in the US versions of games because it was assumed that western players wouldn't be able to figure out where to go or what to do. So it seems that at the time, Nintendo thought US/Canadian gamers weren't as competent as their Japanese counterparts.

[The Metamorphosing Leon]

Nor were we...

[Cobra]

Yep, in fact one of the more common localization changes other than censorship was dumbing down the difficulty on games.

[Haoie]

No speedruns to the extreme for them then, I take it?

Get off my Zebes, you should be saying.

[Leynos]

y can't metroid crawl guy banned from miiverse lol

[SlasherNES]

I'm still struggling w/ the original Metroid! Lol! It's funny though because I think gorwing up on the original NES really "trained" me to think and not have to rely on guides. There were some exceptions and I never owned a game genie until 2001. I only resort to either of those things unless I absolutely must. The games now, I blow through them A LOT quicker, it's like they hold your hand throughout the games you play on XB 360 or PS3. Not to mention there were no saves really(with the exception of Zelda), just passwords and/or continues and sometimes you didn't get either(depending on the game). It was just you against the game and you played on a Friday or Saturday night until the cows came home or beat it! Kids have it easy today w/ the NGC's! Damn kids and your rap music!

[GradualGames]

Playing through Super Metroid is one of my fondest memories of gaming. I did subscribe to Nintendo Power and I did have the Player's guide, but I think I only had to consult it a couple of times to get unstuck. I wasn't a very good gamer, though. I now have a lot of admiration for people who COULD figure out those games. But man...so few modern games can create that level of immersion. Super Metroid is a shining gem of a game.

Now, the only games that interest me are old, hard games. It's just no fun if you're guided all the way through with no challenge at all, as in so many modern games.

The thing I loved so much about Super Metroid though..the graphics, the music, were such masterpieces. And the game felt so incredibly vast. It really felt like you were exploring an alien planet. I can't even comprehend the idea that younger kids wouldn't pick up this game and react like: why the FUCK am I playing anything new???