If you're trying to get into videogames by watching longplays, you're seeing someone's peak performance in what looks like real time. They commit no mistakes, they never die, they hardly take damage, and they always get the max score. This is not a realistic expectation for your first try.
Let's take Sonic the Hedgehog for example. Any of the games in the franchise, really; but I'm talking about the very first one, for the Mega Drive in 1991. I've heard people say, "If you don't get all 7 Chaos Emeralds, then why bother playing?" Then, someone else asks, "What's a Chaos Emerald? Where are they? How do I know if I've missed one?" Then they become so absorbed in having made a mistake, thinking they can't beat the final boss without these items, it affects their gameplay; not only their performance, but also their enjoyment of the game. Sonic didn't get where it is as a franchise by being an endurance test. The game is not going to punish you for playing it wrong. The game doesn't know what "right" and "wrong" are. There's a reason why the Chaos Emeralds are hidden away in Bonus Areas that require insane skill to pass; they're bonus items. It's been my experience that a game won't hide essential items in missable areas; like Super Mario Bros. 3—the missing Magic Wands are awarded for defeating the world bosses; they're essential for completing the game, but you can't advance until you've gotten it. It's not hidden away in a part of the map that you needed to get the Warp Whistle for in World 1, it's right there after you beat the Koopaling on the Doomship; you can't miss it. The same way with the Chaos Emeralds: if you needed them to beat Eggman in the final battle, don't you think the game would give them to you in return for completing obvious tasks?
You shouldn't expect immediate excellence from yourself from the second you pick up the gamepad and start the emulation, regardless of how many times you've watched the video on World of Longplays; it just isn't realistic. For a start, a lot of games operate on something like random chance (computers can't truly behave randomly, but it's "random" enough for non-mathematicians to recognise it as randomness). We're celebrating the 30th anniversary of Doom this year; a game known far and wide for its random number generator that powers everything from impact damage to light flickering. Or, ToeJam & Earl on the Mega Drive again; it's a proper Roguelike, with entire stages that are generated randomly at loadtime, preventing anyone from ever developing a can't-miss strategy.
Sure, there might be some youtubers who are videogaming wunderkinden, but even the most experienced speedrunner had to play the same levels over and over and over, perfecting their route, figuring out how to manipulate RNG in their favour. What takes 25 minutes to watch took 2.5 years of tireless work to achieve. Even the longplayers, who spend 5 hours playing a single game, had to practise their routes in order to make it look like the player character is acting with a will. Speaking as someone who wanted to attempt a Banjo-Tooie longplay at one point, I had to spend just as much time studying GameFAQs walkthroughs and planning which Jiggy to get at what time and which musical notes to get en route as I did actually playing the game. It was so regimented, everything scheduled down to the second in order to make it look like Banjo and Kazooie were acting without control, that it totally killed my enthusiasm for the entire Nintendo 64 console for about 6 months. Should I have started smaller, like Super Mario 64? Probably, but that's not the issue here. The point is that longplayers don't just turn on OBS, boot up the emulator, and play solid state for 5 hours without making a single mistake; it's as much work as you'd expect to find in a full-time job, making these videos, especially if you're not familiar with the games. WoL and LPA longplayers tend to branch out and longplay games they've never seen before, mostly because, otherwise there'd be 128 longplays of Super Mario World, Doom, and Earthworm Jim on the website.
It's no different than when you were a kid. You'd pick up a game that looked interesting and play it until you were content with it, then you'd put it down and pick up another one. You might go back to the first one, you might not, it didn't matter. You weren't playing for mastery, you were just playing. It's supposed to be fun. Absorbing. Entertaining. Something like that. If it doesn't do that, find a different game. That's the secret to gaming excellence right there: try what looks interesting, play games you like, don't play games you don't like.
--29 July 2023--