Are videogames nowadays easier than they used to be?

Were we really THAT helpless when we were little or do videogames nowadays take us by the hand too much? 

Neither, I think it can all be summarized in the fact that the means have evolved: videogames have been refined and frustrating experiences such as the camera or the movement controls have been eliminated. That's because those problems came from a limited technology, unintended.

I started playing my first videogames when I was 4 years old: Tomb Raider 2 (yeah, very suitable) and Hercules, I would also finish Tarzan later on, and all of them barely knowing how to read.

I've promised myself to make this little rumination without mentioning titles such as Dark Souls, Battletoads or Ninja Gaiden. As if it wasn't hard enough to write this by its own.

The idea for this came up to me while I was playing some of the old PSX's and PS2's glories, but, specifically, the first Crash Bandicoot.

About a week ago I finished the remaster of this one to the 100%. It was heard around the corners and recesses of the Internet that it was a game as difficult as the D**k Soups, (little subsection: please, stop comparing anything with this game that I've never heard of).
Truthfully, it is a VERY irregular game, with really easy levels and extremely hard ones. Also, obtaining gems was specially frustrating. 

But it wasn't until, as I was saying before, a couple of days ago, when I tried the PSX title and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, you don't know what difficult means until you've tried it.

I'll start with what has infuriated me the most:

1. The first obvious difference you notice is the mecanics of movement.

This not-so-young kid had lost all his hability using the direction buttons to move and it's not compatible with the analogical joystick.

2. When you've been playing for a while you realize something: "Hey, how do you save the game?" - My sister asked me.

"Darling please, don't embarrass yourself, you can in any dull saving screen". - I answered her.

Ha! I wish it was that easy to save that infernal game. 

Maybe it's easier to understand this if you have already played it but I'll try to put you in situation in case you haven't so you can understand anyways.

• I'll start with the easy part, the remaster: when you're in the level selection screen, you push L2, choose the save slot, square, and game saved.
• Let's now talk about the HELL version (PSX), there's two ways of saving the game:
• Winning a color gem, there's only five spreaded all over the game, each of them achieved only under VERY HARD special conditions. If you get one, you get the chance of saving the game.
• Masks: in the different levels there are boxes. These can contain a Coco mask or some villain's mask, if you manage to collect three equal masks, you're teleported to a special phase. In the remastering, there's a platform where you hop on, you can replay that part as many times as you like. However, the repetitions won't let you save the game again, BUT, just like in the original version, you can replay these parts to collect all boxes. The difference is that if you die in the old game, there is no possible replay.

If you manage to complete the phase successfully, you are allowed to save the game or obtain a code (which I will further explain), of course, these phase ain't a piece of cake either.

About the code, it's a series of buttons that we introduce in the menu as if it was a game trick and it gets us to the part of the game where we got it, however, it won't keep our characteristics, like out accumulated lives, as saving the game does.
I hope I've been clear in the explanation.

3. The jumps. What's wrong with gravity in this game? In the PSX's Crash Bandicoot 2 this didn't happen. Our character moves as if his butt was eight times its usual weight, and his jump is as if you asked your grandfather to make a flip.

The rest of the facts can be applied to any old school game (specially the ones from the begining of the 3D):

4. The community: The color gems are achieved by completing a level without dying and taking all the boxes. To know this in 1996 you probably would've bought a guide. Nowadays, with the Internet, if you get stuck in a game you can just search for free guides or videos that will help you.

5. Controllers and consoles: the most power and precision give us a waaaay better control, so anything that happens depends on the player.

If we talk about difficult old games, most of them will always be unfair:

Just like the Metal Slug. The control of this game is marvellous, it's whole, and it is unbeatable as a 2D game. Despite all this, it was an arcade game, designed for people to spend their money there, so you can't finish it with less than 30 coins, unless you're korean of course.

The most reasonable comparisons in the present would be Super meat boy or The end is Nigh, they've got a sublime control BUT you can't finish them without dying like five hundred times.
Fortunately, the first players have grown and videogames aren't seen as such a plain childish thing, though there's still a long way ahead.

My final conclusion is that the means weren't that evolved in the past and so a frustration emerged provoked by a discipline in diapers. Videogames at that time were very little explained or intuitive, pretty coarse... Nowadays, the videogames that come out are much more balanced and, sadly in some cases, overexplained.

You only need to see the remaster I've put as an example, it's saving system has been adapted to our times, including the auto-save, and each level has got a clue in the begining of it.