Nintendo hard
"Nintendo hard" refers to extreme difficulty in video gaming, characterized by trial-and-error gameplay and limited or nonexistent saving of progress. It originated with the Nintendo Entertainment System in the 1980s and 1990s, such as with "Contra" (1988), "Ninja Gaiden" (1988), and "Battletoads" (1991). Its usage has continued since. History. The Nintendo hard difficulty of many games released for the Nintendo Entertainment System was influenced by the popularity of arcade games in the mid-1980s, a period where players put countless coins in machines trying to beat a game that was brutally hard yet very enjoyable. The difficulty  of many games released in the 1980s and 1990s has also been attributed to the hardware limitations affecting gameplay. Former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said in an interview regarding how NES games were made, "Everyone involved in the production would spend all night playing it, and because they made games, they became good at them. So these expert gamers make the games, saying 'This is too easy.'" The number of games considered Nintendo hard decreased significantly with the fourth-generation 16-bit period of video gaming. Later Nintendo hard games include "Super Star Wars" (1992). According to Michael Enger, indie  games like "I Wanna Be the Guy" (2007) and "Super Meat Boy" (2010) are an "obvious homage" to the Nintendo hard games of the NES era, labeled as "masocore". Analysis. Arcade conversions and 2D platformers are commonly called Nintendo hard. The "Houston Press" described the Nintendo hard era as a period where games "universally felt like they hated us for playing them". GamesRadar journalist Maxwell McGee noted the variety of types of "Nintendo hard" games in the NES library: "A game can be difficult because it's genuinely hard, or because it demands you finish the entire adventure in one  sitting. It can litter the playing field with spikes and bottomless pits [...] or be so hopelessly obtuse you have no idea how to advance." He also wrote that several NES games, such as "Yo! Noid" (1990), "Silver Surfer" (1990), and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" (1989) garnered their Nintendo hard difficulty "for all the wrong reasons". Journalist Michael Enger did not qualify games with challenges that came from poorly-done gameplay as Nintendo hard, but rather only games that were well made and replayable but still extremely hard. Examples. The games in the following list have been recognized as being some  of the hardest NES games and for some, all platforms.