Hard Workin' Video Games (80's Japanese scene)

When I was a boy in the 1980's, video games were needed to play hard.

To reach the final stage or the final battle ( so-called "The Last Boss"), we must learn too much, practice very hard and play so many times.

XEVIOUS (NAMCO,1983) : Area 16 was the most hard attacking area, it was hard to survive beyond it's 70% line.

Ghost 'n Goblins (in Japanese MAKAI-MURA)(CAPCOM, 1985) : Once you jumped, you could not control your trajectory just like Super Mario. Your Jump is a 'STATIC' Jump. not dynamic. And then Gargoyle's moving is very fast & tricky.

GRADIUS (KONAMI, 1986) : As your power up, its difficulty level is up too. If you get the Shield and become 'the FULL power up status', enemy's attacks are reaching the max level. And we surprised 'the Destroying-bullet' ( in Japanese "Uchi-Kaeshi-Dan ) in starting 2 round play.

R-TYPE (IREM, 1987) : We need to build the pattern to clear. Enemies attacks are too tricky so if you do not know the pattern, you could not clear over 3 stage.

STREET FIGHTER II (CAPCOM,1991) : First of all, you must learn to use many special attacks. we surprised the command of "SYO-RYU-KEN" (Jumping upper-cut) because it was more difficult to input 6, 2, 3 ( as ten key ) than "HADOU-KEN". If you learned, could you input at 2 player side?

I did not have enough money to play many times because I was a teenager, so I started to work to deliver news papers after school. I got not so much money, but I felt enough to play these arcade video games at the Game Center with my friends. Until closing times at AM 0:00, we were playing, talking, and enjoying. Happy video game life were there in the 80's Japanese Game Centers.