The Challenge Aspect

I demand value from my bought games. I might have skipped several games over the years in my collection that were never beaten by me, but now that I have decided to beat every single game in my collection as a challenging but thrilling goal, none are left untouched in order to obtain value.

Several ways are there to approach these buried games from my childhood period. There's my usual, all-around veteran gaming approach towards them. To be more precise, that means simply going through them, reading the level and enemy patterns, dying uncountable times in the process and then profit from them, or to gain that victory feeling if you will.

But when Flok comes back to flawed classic games such as Blaster Master, I need to rethink of my strategy here drastically. That game has no navigation, will crush you with some unforgiving bosses and the worst news is that continues are limited.

Why should I then enter into hardcore mode, also known as taking it all like a man, going into game overs one after another like it's nothing, starting all over from the beginning again. Why should I go frustrated over a game progress moment such as finding a random crucial key item in a random location, or expect to understand a game's consistency and/or design when I can use walkthroughs, tips from players and best of all the mighty save state function found in emulators in order to perform better?

There was a time when I felt that using walkthroughs, advice and savestates was a direct insult to the given games. But now that the game industry is filled with interesting games to play and that my personal life gets busier and busier, it really feels like time has shrank at the present and thus, things should speed up.

It doesn't mean that the experience nor the difficulty of games will go away for me while using these helpful methods, I actually still acknowledge and respect these factors as I normally would with for example an easy game. That is why I am pleased to tell you that I am glad that emulators and walkthroughs exist in order to beat these hard as hell games such as Blaster Master.

I am also glad to know that the challenge aspect although has become easier sort of, still exists, especially when looking at NES and SNES titles. In the end, in order to accomplish that victory feeling essentially, it will have to be you yourself who will need to deliver the final blow in a video game.