This statement has some truth, and I would tend to agree. But it's missing the point.

By what universe's logic was one supposed to ever come up with arbitrarily dropping emeralds in a specific spot in a forest, or intentionally getting captured by a blue monster, or dropping a random unassuming object into some odd contraption (devoid of any kind of description in-game, mind you) all on his own? I grew up on these games too. When I first played them, when I failed to come up with the right solution, it certainly wasn't because I was lazy and not thinking. When I finally gave in to finding the solutions to these problems in the official hint book ... I felt cheated when I found out what they were.

KQ1 can't really be compared to KQ5, as KQ1 did it right. I also completed KQ1 on my own without a hint book, and discovered many years later that there were alternate solutions to most of the puzzles, and I always thought that was cool. One had the freedom to complete objectives in any order, could still complete the game without managing to come up with the optimal solutions for each.

KQ4 and KQ5, however, both require a more rigid sequence of actions and don't tolerate lesser solutions. It wasn't until KQ6 when alternate solutions and paths through the game were reintroduced, and that's widely regarded as the best in the series, and receives far fewer complaints of unfairness.

A good point that I saw raised in the comments on filfre.net: as kids, we don't really do criticism very well. When a game has puzzles and we don't get them, we assume there's something wrong with us rather than with the game. We accept that the game is almost a 'perfect creation', not even realizing that it's designed by regular people.

I would add to this the fact that even as adults, we have trouble criticizing things we like. We like these games automatically because we grew up on them, and because we like them, they must be good. But this isn't the case. We can like bad games. KQ1 and 2 were revolutionary at the time in some ways (specifically graphics and immersion), but they're badly designed games. I still like them. I love the look and feel of KQ5, but I can accept that it's one of the worst adventure game designs ever made.

Damn it. I was afraid of this. I also just got to the point in the game where I've beat the desert and the witch's lair and saved the tree and everything and I can't figure out what to do next. Turns out that cat that appeared one time like three screens into the game (I triggered that SUPER early) will never return. I think I may have triggered it before my first save even, so no amount of saving afterwards would have helped me. I am so pissed right now at how poorly designed this puzzle was. Even if it triggered the cat sequence after I had the boot and I didn't know what to do, that would kinda be on me. Triggering it before I had virtually any items at all is horrendously short-sighted on the devs part.

That is true.