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Post by Ex on Nov 20, 2019 12:35:49 GMT -5
The screenshots above are a couple bosses from Sword of Vermilion, a 1989 SEGA Genesis action-RPG. This is a game that I beat as an eleven year old, but not easily. Sword of Vermilion has many bosses, all of which are hideous huge terrifying monstrosities - at least in the eyes of a child. No joke folks, when I was a child, these bosses frightened me so much, that I would literally pray to God to help me defeat them. (I was a weird kid believe it or not.) Apparently that worked, because I did beat the game. But still, even seeing these images today, I get a primordial tinge in the back of my mind - the fear is still there. I'm sure it was a combination of not wanting to lose progress (white knuckled loss potential) in addition to how disturbingly vicious these bosses appeared. The fact is, as a child I was terrified of these bosses like nothing else I'd experienced before (or after).
So what about you? Got any PTSD-addled stories from gaming as a youngster? Or perhaps a certain stage that imbued tangible dread, simply due to its ferocious difficulty? Was there a particular series of jumps, or puzzle, that always beat you down as a gamer-chan, but eventually you overcame it?
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Post by Sarge on Nov 20, 2019 15:37:33 GMT -5
I was trying to think of some grotesque, super-imposing boss, and something like Necrosaro from Dragon Quest IV. That final battle is gonzo intimidating, seeing his limbs get taken out, and then he starts growing them back and getting even more powerful as the battle rages. It's super-creepy since that face emerges from his chest. I also thought of this dude: He still intimidates me, every time I play. Very few "bosses" require such exacting performance to win.
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Post by toei on Nov 20, 2019 16:58:42 GMT -5
Ex I remember thinking those boss fights looked really cool, but I also found them very easy, so they didn't scare me much. I still think Vermillion has a really interesting aesthetic. There's something about those colors and that gloomy soundtrack. I used to be too intimidated to play games on "Normal", or to play beat-'em-ups alone, when I was a young child. It wasn't enemy designs that scared me or anything, but rather the idea of difficulty.
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Post by 20thcenturygamer on Nov 20, 2019 18:01:45 GMT -5
I notably got so frustrated by the first level of Gradius back around 1991 that it put me off the genre for almost 25 years. I also thought Castlevania III was cool, but pretty much impossible. I can 1CC both pretty reliably now.
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Post by Sarge on Nov 20, 2019 18:15:34 GMT -5
Well done on a 1CC Gradius run. That's definitely an intimidating game.
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Post by Ex on Nov 20, 2019 23:12:30 GMT -5
I also thought of this dude As someone who only beat Mike this very year, yeah I get it. Ex I remember thinking those boss fights looked really cool, but I also found them very easy, so they didn't scare me much. Were you eleven years old? If I'd been a teenager I'm sure my reaction would have differed. I loved its morose somber atmosphere, incredible how well that was accomplished given the game releasing so early in the Genesis' life. I also thought Castlevania III was cool, but pretty much impossible. The game still gives me a hard time. I've beaten it, but definitely not a 1CC.
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Post by toei on Nov 20, 2019 23:40:34 GMT -5
Ex I was 10 or 11, yeah. It wasn't 1989, though, but the early 32-bit era by then. I don't know, I can't say any 16-bit game or earlier ever really spooked me out that I can remember. Silent Hill was the first game to really do that for me. 2D horror just looks cool to me instead of scary. Though this reminds me that I used to see Splatterhouse 3 at the rental store all the time and though the cover was really cool, but I was afraid to rent it because it was single-player. Speaking of somber and morose, this is the song I heard in my head when I saw those screenshots: Has to be the darkest town theme I can think of. Life ain't easy in Vermillion's world. It reminds me of certain Phantasy Star 3 tracks, and also the Rykros theme in PSIV, very strongly. There's a certain crystalline sound that has a very otherworldly feel to it, like a xylophone from 5000 YEARS INTO THE FUTURE.
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Post by anayo on Nov 21, 2019 6:41:44 GMT -5
I remember one Genesis game I thought was downright bad (Marsupalami), one NES game I thought was baffling (Cave Man Games), and I used to think my Dad's flight MS-DOS simulator games seemed a little too complex for me (I tried to play them anyway though and still enjoyed watching him play). Mostly though I just wanted to play everything. It didn't matter if the game was really hard or if I could never beat it, I would still enthusiastically play it. I remember thinking some games were bad or confusing but intimidation was rarely what I felt toward video games as a kid.
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Post by Xeogred on Nov 21, 2019 8:14:01 GMT -5
toei just made me think of one...
Earthworm Jim. Everyone knows those two games were quite hard at the time due to some wonky hit detection, platforming, and such. But one day while playing the Genesis version from a rental, I got to this level:
This level is absent from the SNES port, which I played a lot more growing up. So when I got to "Intestinal Distress" just ONCE in my entire childhood, this freaky level stuck with me forever. I'm not sure what's worse, how putrid the environment looks, or the constant beating heart (?) for the "music".
Super Ghouls' definitely had some of the best scary 2D environments as well. Especially growing up in a super religious home, one of my friends and I thought this game was demonic. But my dad and one of his friends liked it too, so I guess that's how I somehow owned it growing up.
I was pretty desensitized to it all though and never really scared of much. I played Doom when I was five years old and Resident Evil 2 in grade school.
The first Hell I ever saw, goes to Blaster Master's Area 8...
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Post by Sarge on Nov 21, 2019 11:12:07 GMT -5
Blaster Master gets scary because you have to make it all happen in one run!
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