EarthBound will make you use the Hell out of some items.

I like its approach to difficulty, too: it doesn't matter if you are at max level, those final sections can still curb-stomp you.

At least the newer Castlevania games are still offering a challenge.

when games were hard, it was the best. my siblings and some of friends couldn't play because it was too dificult so i used to show off.

now the games are soooo easy that even my sister is beating games.

Actually, I don't really have this problem. I'm okay with most games becoming kinder and gentler, so long as there are still some masochistic games out there. And there are. I just replayed Shiren the Wanderer, and am thinking of buying Eritrean Oddysey II. Everyone knows about Contra IV by now. I'm finding Mother 3 fairly brisk. Etc. etc.

Point is you can have your cake and eat it too, if you're willing to look.

i really miss that day, but i'm enjoying virtual console so i can relive those days and find games that i didn't play back then. Funny you mention river city ransom because i was just playing through that game. That game is actually not that hard and is quite short but it's still really fun. There is plenty of stuff to get that will keep you going for a while though.

I have ghosts and goblins, castlevania, comix zone, mega man 9, and mario 2 on my wii so i can get my share of difficult games.

I got contra 4 on my DS too.

Yeah, it's not that hard.... I just like mentioning it for the passwords.  Man would I build up and build up... and get ready for bed... fill out the 60 letter or so password just to find out somewhere in the mess i made an 0 a O or a 1 an l or something.  Man would i get pissed.

I think the difficulties of games has more or less remained the same, it's simply that now you're older and more experienced than when you were a child, so it just appears that they aren't as hard.

no way, only if you started during the ps1 days could you possibly say that.  NES, SNES, and genesis games were clearly harder than the current games.  The number of NES games that are painfully difficult is very large, for some of them it was a good thing for some of them it was more frustrating than fun.  Even many of the games that were for kids like the simpsons and TMNT were really hard.  You can't say that these days.  Nowdays even the hardcore games are often easy

Also: Adventures of Link was bullcrap. I'm glad games aren't "hard" like that anymore.

depends on the game, i miss games like ninja gaiden and ghouls and ghosts (glad we got contra 4 though) which were difficult in a good way where games like TMNT were difficult in a stupid way.

Zelda 2 wasn't that bad.