Yeah, I agree. Each new generation of video games, in general, has gotten easier and more approachable than the last. FromSoftware's output over the last 15 years has been absolutely stellar but in terms of difficulty it can't compete with something as simple as Gradius III or Ghosts 'n Goblins.

Now, I'm not saying those 80s games are superior -- they are unfairly, punishingly difficult -- but it's important to put things in perspective.

Oh man, ghost & goblins.  Tough as crap and requires beating it twice.  That game was crazy hard.

New games are better balanced.  I can't think of a new game that rocked like most games in the 80s did.  

There is a huge difference between fun hard and broken boring hard. Having to start over in a very difficult game is game breaking. Did get gud gameplay even exist on GC or ps2? oh yea ninja gaiden black was probably the only one. in the 8th gen hard games now have mass appeal which never really happened before 8th gen.

Viewtiful Joe, Otogi and quite a few other hard games existed.  DMC was quite hard too.  

Edit

Shinobi on the ps2 was hard as crap as well.  

Games have gotten easier every generation, imho.  Souls is considered hard, but it isn't even that hard comparatively.  Souls is easier than Ninja Gaiden.  

Ever play Ikaruga or F-zero GX on the GC?  

Both are harder than souls.

I beat ninja gaiden on master ninja mode  and it doesn't come close being as hard as souls imo. DMC is not really challenging at all these days it was probably your first action game at the time. obviously i can't try every game but in terms of AAA games with actual scope and budget they are much more challenging these days.

We will have to agree to disagree.  I think games have gotten pretty significantly easier each generation and souls has it's difficulty grossly overrated.  Still an amazing franchise, but history is littered with dozens and dozens of harder games.  

I really don't have that much time so of course i will pick what looks cool to me or the highest rated game that looks interesting  to see what the fuss is about. Back to the point most of games known for having the best combat and mechanics are on 8th gen, they have vastly improved in that area. resident evil 4 remake is vastly better then og one combat wise. last of us 2 combat is also vastly better then 1, same with GOW 2018, Spider-Man games before ps4, arkham knight also improves the combat. bloodbrone, dark souls 3 and sikero also have much better combat then dark souls 1 and 2. i think most people that really enjoy challenging combat   have seen massive improvements in  AAA  games.

Did you play MGS5?

I don't mean that it's newer therefore it's better. I mean the gaming industry ballooned (with a lot of shite also) with a lot of great games even into niches like VR and racing sims, RTS's, strategy games, RPG's etc all getting multiple masterpieces or close to masterpieces. Indies became like AA experiences and boy is there ablot of them all the time, releasing like a waterfall. We got CRPG's back with Divinity OS laying the ground work and even more niche titles like Path Finder gaining success. The Witcher 3 bringing AAA like polish to open world RPG's. Multiple Sony top teir godly budget single player games. Nintendo redfined abload of it's IP's, something it was hesitant to change formulas on for way to long like BoTW. The souls series hit it's stride and then exceeded all expectations.

There are thousands of new games a year on steam and if you dig you can find gems. Every week there are new games to play and if nothing suits you or you aren't paying attention (cause there surely has to be something in the big pile) the next week is only a week away. As much as GaaS and Cacha games suck for me and probably you too, people find them and play them endlessly or for months at a time and speaking of that, we got a great MMO in FF14 which is competition for WoW through the 8th gen and WoW came back in a big way too for a bit. Every aspect and genre of gaming was improved with at least one game. The only aspect that sucked was Xbox but we've seen them lay the groundwork like the PS3 did for something better, there was fun and goodness there too.

The most niche games and genres becoming the most popular is indication that people now have visibility on what is good and not what's sold to them, even among the massive amount of lesser content that is being produced along side them. Publishers have to put out good games cause even the biggest hype can fall through on release day, or perhaps this is more of a newer 9th gen phenomena but one that was born in the 8th gen at least.  

Most of these games were extremely linear, low budget and ugly graphics this is why i said AAA gaming now is more challenging. I'm sure you can find a ton of indie game that are extremely challenging as well. i'm talking about games with mass appeal and descent  budget.

You can look at many publications  lists for difficult games  almost all have sekiro/souls as most challenging games in the top 5 and many games from 8th gen.

Found a nice sample here most challenging games of all time with 33k votes and sekiro gets number 1. Most votes in the top 10 are 8th gen votes.

https://www.ranker.com/list/hardest-video-games-of-all-time/ranker-games

Except God of war started on the ps2 and back then had God mode.  Difficult games are not new.

And people tend to remember the most recent games.  I can assure you Sekiro isn't harder than MDK2.  

As someone who started gaming on the NES and has beaten every souls game solo at least 7 times...  games haven't gotten harder.  

Go give Actraiser 2 a play.  Check out Contra 3 on the hardest difficulty.  

Jak isn't an easy game, another ps2 title from Naughty Dog.  

The old armored core games are harder than the new ones.  

Edit

Or go toss the original Halo on legendary....  way, way, way harder than souls.  And that was a massive AAA big budget game. 

MGS2 on the hardest difficulty is harder than souls.