Another example: Karateka, by Jordan Mechner, creator of the Prince of Persia series. That side-scrolling martial arts adventure was definitely a game difficult to master, yet so satisfying when one did. Experienced players remember the anxiety of choosing when to run and when to walk, knowing that while running brought the player closer to his goal, it also left the character completely vulnerable to attack. One always had the option of remaining in karate stance, of course, but movement was then restricted to side-stepping, which was incredibly slow, and put more enemies in one's path.

There are those who maintain that game mechanics in those days were difficult because they were created by designers who were pioneering the field; with no other similar games to measure difficulty against, there was no way to know that their games were harder than they ought to have been. Others say that the limitations of the hardware imposed certain hard-coded limits on what could be accomplished, resulting in extremely challenging gameplay on most levels.

There is something to be said for both of those arguments, as witness games like Bolo and The Bilestoad, which could only benefit from a modern remake. However, perhaps a better way to regard these games is by taking account of their incredible value.

These days it's common for players to complain about a game's length, as though that should trump its quality. A game offering only eight or so hours of play is seen as poor value for its price, over a game featuring over 30 hours of play. Many games offer ranges of difficulty to offset this, but the fact of the matter is that gameplay has been refined to the point where many mechanics ape those of other games. Playing one genre prepares the player to play other games of that genre, until they are masters. Games have eased up on the challenge required to get through them, so the continued complaint over length remains.

Arguably, we play games to be challenged, to try something new. Yet when a game like Megaman 9 comes along, with its throwback difficulty, modern gamers cry foul -- they say the controls are too unforgiving, the action is too clunky, whatever the nature of their issue. Yet that game plays very closely to the way the early Megaman games did, and they were great games back then. What's changed is the audience's expectation of how a game should play, and perhaps we've been lulled into a false sense of proficiency.

Now, maybe these things have changed out of a desire to keep players buying new titles at an accelerated rate. Where one particularly challenging game might have held interest for months, now a game can be gotten through in a week, or quicker. Therefore there is more room on the calendar for more games, which supports the market better than the old model did. Maybe the market is so oversaturated with games that designers fear alienating players with gameplay that might be deemed too difficult -- word does get out fast among the faithful, and poor early reviews can mean death to a game company.

I can't help but feel that so many games out there offer gameplay that is barely different from their competition that some sort of differentiation needs to occur. Cosmetic changes only last so long and never really affect actual play; cutscenes are nice to look at but sometimes annoy with their length; what's left but mechanics? It's past time that we started having a return to truly challenging play. Players should have to work at mastery. It should be hard to get headshots, and take cover from enemy fire. Regenerating health should take longer to effect. Special abilities, spells, powers, etc. should require more from the player than a simple button press. We have evolved certain conventions out of a desire to simplify things for players, but maybe we ought to lean back the other direction if we want to avoid becoming too soft.