Your goals when gaming are no more valid than anyone else's goals. Playing a game on ultra-hard is no more meaningful than someone playing it on super-easy, as long as they enjoy the experience. It's supposed to be entertainment first and foremost.

As for the difficulty of past generations, a lot of it was the bad kind of difficult, where it got tedious and punishing rather than challenging and rewarding. It was often done to make games feel longer because they were short on actual content.

This pretty much sums up everything I'd have to say in response to this thread. 

Part of the reason games are easier now days is that developers have weeded out bad design choices over the years. Makes thing easier when you don't have to put up with them getting in the way of playing the game.

These days ive noticed that those niche Japanese games you talk about are the ones that often fall prey to bad design choices that hamper enjoyment. Most likely due to lower budgets. 

Why would you need punishment in a singleplayer experience? Are people who don't like difficult games less of a human?

If I want punishment and challenge I play multiplayer.

If a game withholds information that's vital to the experience then that's bad game design. Just because games in the past were shit and therefore difficult doesn't make them better somehow. Making a game hard is the easiest thing to do, so why would I praise developers for it? Making a balanced game and offering multiple modes for all different kinds of people is hard and should be praised.

There can be a good balance in the games without having a difficulty choice. Yoshi's wooly world is a great example where they specifically make it so with a few tries most things are beatable but the real challenge is getting the 100%, and then then each world unlocks a really hard level to beat.

Plenty of games made today still offer challenging gameplay. The reason we hear people complain about this so often comes down to:

1. People who played games back in the day got older and therefore more skilled and experienced.

2. Older games were held back by the technology: As many have already pointed out, less room for content meant more punishing gameplay was required to artificially extend the game's length. Additionally, the controllers had way less input options, which meant that a lot of the time the gameplay was more about precision and timing, rather than strategy. Thus the more difficult parts felt more tedious and were perceived as more difficult than they actually were.

3. The power of the internet: People complain about games being too hard and too easy all the time, but we tend to focus on the latter since it enforces the view that games today are too easy compared to how they used to be, when the truth is that we have not only more easy, but also more difficult games today to choose from.

Ugh...can we please get past this idea that older games were better? They really weren't. Time just weeds out the garbage.

I don't really think so..

Having an easy difficulty is fine with me, though it is nice if there is a difficulty setting to make it as difficult as you want the game to be

Not all games should be designed for everyone. Instead, some games should be directed towards beginners while others should be more challenging. For example Nintendo: if you want an easy game, play Kirby. If you want a moderate game with great learning curve, play Mario. If you want a die hard platformer, play Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze. I believe that some players enjoy challenging games more than just watching everything roll over the screen without much need to interfere. That's why the Souls game are so popular.

As for older games and their counterparts these days, I think the several genres should be regarded differently. RPGs were very grind-demanding back then, which they usually are not anymore. I think that's good. Platformers have been very hard but it got differentiated as time went by. There are plenty of easy platformers and still some hard ones. Something for everyone. Shooters have also been extremely difficult, sidescrollers as well as run'n'gunners like Contra as well as early fps like Doom. Nowaydays it seems to me that shooters have no challenge at all anymore, instead they try to sell a Hollywood-like experience. But still, some shooters are very hard and challenging. So, everybody should find something for his needs and urges, I guess.

A side effect of super hard games back in the old days existed, too. It wasn't simply a form of entertainment, it was a life lesson. Games back then told you, that if you want to achieve something, you must practice! Oh, you're no good at this? Then sit your a$$ down here and get good! The feeling of satisfaction and relief that you only get when you managed to beat an ultra heavy and demanding boss/area is priceless. You cannot get that in easy games or easy difficulty settings.

yeah but this is not 1994 anymore, there are countless of Internet guides and youtube videos how to beat a game, we wouldnt have imagined having all these technologies these days back then. Its your fault pretty much if youre stuck