Games you have SMASHED as an adult that you could never beat when you were a kid

[OptOut | 8,887]

I think there's quite a common theme we hear about how there are games we played all the time as kids and could eventually beat with our eyes closed, then when we grow up the skills are just gone .. But what about the other way around?

Recently I went just hog WILD on Rogue Squadron on N64 and got all Golds on every single level, and unlocked all the ships and EVERYTHING!

As a kid, the best I ever managed was silvers on every level, and a handful of golds here and there, for some reason I never went hardcore for all the golds, I just found the game quite intimidating I guess? I mean I loved this game as a kid and played it tons, but I never imagined I could get golds, so I guess I didn't try?

Of course, these things ARE easier these days with guides and YouTube videos, so maybe I didn't have the confidence to try as a kid because I didn't have much guidance on how to do it...

But still, I think we can ALL agree that 12 year old @OptOut was a huge loser, and that I'm so fucking better than him in every way...

 

So, what games have you smashed to pieces that left prior versions of yourself trembling like autumn leaves?

 

[Reed Rothchild | 9,543]

Perfect Dark.  I couldn't beat War on the hardest difficulty.  I beat it in one try as an adult.

 

 

...neverminding the fact that I got to use a 360 controller instead of the POS N64 control scheme 

[Bearcat-Doug | 5,105]

Mike Tyson's Punch Out. I couldn't beat Tyson as a kid. Now I've been able to make it through the entire game winning each fight in Round 1, sometimes without even getting hit.

[Kguillemette | 1,544]

Little Nemo comes to mind. As a kid the train level seemed impossible(as did most auto scrolling levels). It wasn't until I was an adult that I finally conquered it and then eventually the rest of the game.

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,056]

This is a bit of an obscure one compared to games that might get mentioned, but the only one I can think of is Mighty Moprhin Power Rangers The Fighting Edition on Snes. Had it my whole life could never get very far in the game. Then in the first year of two of me collecting (2011-2012ish), I actually read the manual, that I also had. Learned how to defend properly, and knocked it out in one go

[twiztor | 851]

6 hours ago, OptOut said:

So, what games have you smashed to pieces that left prior versions of yourself trembling like autumn leaves?

i dunno. all of them?

as a kid, i only remember beating Mario 1-3, Zelad 1-4, and like TMNT2. 

as an adult, i feel like i'm plowing through games that i never stood a chance against when i was younger (all 6 NES Mega Mans, all 3 NES Castlevanias, Metroid, etc.) Maybe i was just terrible at gaming when i was a kid. As a teen, i gravitated towards multiplayer n64 games. Now that i'm a grown ass man, i'm revisiting a lot of the NES classics and beating them with relative ease. i honestly didn't expect this, but i'm certainly not complaining!

[fcgamer | 4,725]

Never really experienced this, then again I never stopped playing the classics, unlike basically everyone else I know who sold off their machines, invested in the next generation console, stopped gaming in college, etc.

[Brickman | 3,988]

I didn’t have a huge library growing up so I normally spent my time beating every game I owned or 100% them if I loved them. 

Two games I had on the NES that I could never beat though were TMNT and Battletoads. I went back to them in my early 20’s and still couldn’t beat them. I haven’t tried in my 30’s, I really should try to one day.

[OptOut | 8,887]

1 hour ago, Brickman said:

I didn’t have a huge library growing up so I normally spent my time beating every game I owned or 100% them if I loved them. 

Two games I had on the NES that I could never beat though were TMNT and Battletoads. I went back to them in my early 20’s and still couldn’t beat them. I haven’t tried in my 30’s, I really should try to one day.

Yeah I tried Turtles again a year or two back, still couldn't beat it, lol! 

[Dr. Morbis | 2,089]

This thread is basically me for every game I played as a kid.  I couldn't beat much more than SMB and Zelda (after about six months of working on it).  Then, when I started collecting and went back to all those old NES games, I was pounding out victory after victory on games I remembered being absolutely impossible: Castlevania?  No problem; TMNT?  Total Cakewalk; Adventure Island?  Yeah, this one took me like four hours to beat the final world, but it still fell on the first day I went back to it.  And this is the same story on like every game I've gone back to that I couldn't beat before.  So, at this point, I have no choice but to conclude that the child version of myself must've been one hell of a shitty gamer....

Edited July 17, 2022 by Dr. Morbis

[fcgamer | 4,725]

I was quite decent at games as a child, as I grew into my tween years (god I hate that word) I overtook my brother easily, and it just went from there. 

A fun way of playing that an Argentinian buddy of mine likes is to play a game every day, play until game over, then shut it down and do something else. After a few weeks he'll master any game in this way.

[NostalgicMachine | 236]

Basically any racing or sports game. I was all about action platformers, adventure RPGs, etc. as a kid. Now I wreck racing and sports even casually with friends lol.

[DoctorEncore | 3,691]

I never beat any games as a child. Usually I would just play for 30 minutes and then go do something else. So for the vast majority of games, I only ever saw the first couple levels.

As an adult, I'm much better at focusing on one task, so I feel like I could probably beat any game I committed to. Now it's more a problem of picking and choosing what I actually want to play in the limited time I have.

[rdrunner | 422]

Out of the games I owned, I think the one game that fits this thread is Bubble Bobble (NES).  I could only get to the infamous stage 57 as a kid.  Today is a much different story, though it admittedly took a lot of practice.

I could beat the rest of my library though (about 20 NES games).

[Webhead123 | 678]

Super Mario Bros. 2 comes to mind for me. Part of the issue was that I didn't own the game, only rented it multiple times. I don't remember what I found so challenging but I distinctly remember never even making it to the final world. Played it for the backlog challenge a couple months ago and breezed through.

I think Contra could also technically fit this list. I mean. I did beat it (dozens of times) when I was young...but all of those plays were using the Konami code, so it was technically cheating. I continued to play it into adulthood and I don't remember exactly what age I was but at a certain point I realized that I knew the game well enough that I should just start playing the "normal way". These days, I can readily 1cc it, if not an outright no-death. Still just as amazing a game for me as it was when I first played it 33 years ago.

Edited July 17, 2022 by Webhead123

[Sumez | 2,963]

Fuck I couldn't even beat *mega man* games as a kid. Nevermind arcade shooters and stuff.

[RH | 4,906]

I wanted to knock out DuckTales for the Beat the GB Library event here.  I beat it as a kid, but it took a lot of effort. I played it for the event and I beat it in one pass and lost just one life on a poorly timed jump.

We also had Rad Racer for the NES competition last year.  I never beat it as a kid (and still didn’t) but back then I could barely get to the fourth stage.  I got much farther consistently in the competition, often making it to the last stage.

I know as a kid I always second-guessed myself on everything because I was just afraid of losing lives and not finishing. I was always psyching myself out at very difficult obstacle.  Now in the age of emulators I can practice difficult areas over and over again, plus having a much less conservative attitude I’m a lot better than I was as a kid.

Edited July 18, 2022 by RH

[Aguy | 773]

I wouldn't say I smash it now, but I'm decent at Tetris. When I was a kid, I wasn't very good at it, so I didn't like it, but since it was the pack in Gameboy game and I didn't have a lot of other options, I played it for the music. Today I can enjoy playing it solo, still not a fan of Tetris 99 as it is a reminder of my mediocrity.

[T-Pac | 7,560]

I had a relatively easy time with Monster In My Pocket [NES] as an adult, but it would’ve been brutal as a kid.

Little CasualCart had no patience or pattern-recognition skills.
(Big CasualCart hardly does either, but improvement is improvement…)

-CasualCart

[AstralSoul | 502]

Original Legend of Zelda. The game seemed impossible back then.

[AirVillain | 490]

Double Dragon III. Loved it as a kid but the single life, and I didn't realize you got to use the boss' after you defeat them () really kicked my ass. 

 

On 7/17/2022 at 12:48 PM, rdrunner said:

Out of the games I owned, I think the one game that fits this thread is Bubble Bobble (NES).  I could only get to the infamous stage 57 as a kid.  Today is a much different story, though it admittedly took a lot of practice.

I could beat the rest of my library though (about 20 NES games).

The question here really is..... what game CAN'T YOU BEAT?

[mbd39 | 2,024]

Many NES games. I didn't own that many games as a kid and so I usually rented, and I didn't often beat weekend rentals. I could beat Mike Tyson's Punch Out and Castlevania as a kid because I owned them.

I think also internet makes it easier to beat these games today. Whereas in the past you mostly depended on friends and magazines for tips.

 

Ninja Gaiden 1 & 2

Double Dragon 1 & 2. I can't remember whether I rented the third one. I have some vague recollections.

Jackal

Batman

Contra w/o Konami code

Battletoads

RollerGames

Bayou Billy

POW: Prisoners of War

Captain Skyhawk

Bad Dudes

 

 

 

[TDIRunner | 2,741]

This is sort of a random one, but I remember getting Felony 11-79 on PS1 when it first came out and the game was basically impossible for me.  We could rarely finish the first level and when we did, we certainly never made it past the second level.  The game itself is fairly short (either 3 or 4 levels total), so the difficult is somewhat ramped up in order to keep you from completing the game in a single sitting.  

I hadn't played in the game in over 20 years and just for fun, I thought I would pop it in a see how it had aged over the years.  Despite not playing the game in so long, I ended up beating the game on a single life with time to spare.  I couldn't believe how simple the game was.  I just have really sucked as these types of games back then.  

The game itself hasn't aged that well.  It's pretty basic, but I will always remember how much I enjoyed the game as a kid, even if I wasn't very good at it.  I will also remember it as one of the first games I played that allowed you to drive in a 3D open world environment WAY before GTA was doing it.