Back nineteen years ago, Super Metroid was easily my favorite game. It was so much fun sauntering around Zebes slaying superbaddie bosses, getting suit power-ups and returning to old areas to clear new paths to unlock even more powerful abilities, all of it leading to an epic showdown with [SPOILER] and one of the most emotional video game endings ever.
Now, Super Metroid is an unreasonably challenging, brutally difficult, merciless #&@$% #&@$% of a #&@$% game. Holy #&@$%. Holy #&@$%. You mean I have to #&@$% remember to come back here when I presumably get some #&@$% ability that allows me to get through #&@$% here? #&@$%. Holy #&@$%! You #&@$% expect me to remember that? And you #&@$% expect me to #&@$% jump back up there after I just #&@$% came all the way down here? Oh, I #&@$% see: this #&@$% #&@$% is #&@$% invincible. You’re #&@$% kidding me, right? Holy #&@$% how do I #&@$% use missiles? Where the #&@$% is the tutorial? Oooooh, Morphine Ball?! That was easy. Oh, now wait, who the #&@$% is this guy?…
If you ever think video games these days aren’t super easy, go play the titles from twenty years ago. The kids games of that era offered way more of a challenge and asked far more of a commitment than most of today’s fare. Having played those games back then, and upon returning to them now, I’m definitely a gamer who has gone soft and become lazy.