Mentalepsy: Elven Legacy can be quite challenging, but I wouldn't call it 'incredibly hard.' Then again, I haven't finished it yet, so maybe it gets to that point later on.
Of course, no matter how difficult the game, you'll always have internet tough guys boasting about how it's too easy and how they're sick of everything being dumbed-down for four-year-olds.
orcishgamer: Part of it is state of mind, when I played Castlevania: Lords of Shadow I cranked up the difficulty, but I found the "hard" rewarding, it feels a lot different if you don't feel like you're being punished for the whole exercise and that's largely in your head (though game design can definitely play into it). I'm sure there's a ton of people who'd tell me that LoS wasn't hard, but when you don't have 20 year old reflexes anymore, some of those games with very unforgiving fights get really tough.
I think that's the whole thing, once you get in your thirties you don't have the mental energy or patience you did back when you were thirteen. I mean back when I was thirteen I had Konami's Life Force mastered to the point where I had memorized all the bullet patterns throughout all of the levels.
Also as you near forty, you no longer have that notion that you've got an eternity left to take the time to master every game.
And, as well, here in 2011, considering what's available and the backlog, there are a gazillion more games avaiable now than there were back in the late eighties and early nineties.
