I couldn't even imagine how easy easy is
In the NES and Arcade era before that, try taking these games and putting them on Easy, you'll still have a bad time a lot of the times
Now Hard mode barely cuts it. Had to put DQXI on Hard for it to not be braindead. Aterlier Ryza, apparently even Hard mode is easy. Fire Emblem Three Houses gave me not all that much problems on Hard other than one end game map that really was going for my neck
But then the problem is that "Ver hard", "Lunatic" or whatever comes after is often unlocked only after the game, but it's a difficulty that's too hard and is made for people who already know everything about the game
In a way it's kind of telling on how Dark Souls and co got so popular. Games are generally so easy nowadays that a game being unapologetically hard, with no easy mode, becomes a novelty
Altho', generally easy games can be fun. Yoshi Island and co (100% that gives some level of challenge tho') and Kirby games, because they're FUN. But then, with other titles like Yoshi Crafted World, the game is so easy it's braindead and not fun at all
💀
@coolboymew
Played a bit of the classic Final Fantasy games. I generally went for the GBA versions, cause they were generally a bit better looking that the originals, and had improved gameplay, but also cause they were considered easier. But yeah... even those aren't really easy. You still need to grind like crazy.
There are generally 2 issues that have caused the change in difficulty from what I understand. (I'll ignore arcade games, cause those had inflated difficulty just to eat up your coins)
1) early NES era, and immediately after, were very hard, because there was only so much devs could include on the cartridge, so this functioned as a way to increase play time. As distributing more content became easier, this artificial increase of difficulty was no longer needed.
2) As early gamer generations grew up, they still remained an important part of the market share, especially since they started having more disposable income. But the downside of growing up, is that you have less free time. So devs further reduced game difficulty, so you wouldn't need to grind 20 hours for a 40 hours game. If they didn't do this, they'd risk losing you as a customer.
Like Dragon Quest 1 on Nes is like 30 hours of pure grinding lol. I did it a few years ago
These truly are for the most hardcore of fans nowadays
I've found the Phantasy Star series to have a really nice grinding/exploration balance (Still grindy tho'). Especially 2 with it's labyrinthine "layers of hell" where you need to find the right holes to drop from to advance in the dungeon. You advance little by little and meanwhile you get your necessary levels