Old Games? I Fudging Love Old Games!

Or more specifically I am looking at NES, SNES, Sega Genesis and Sega jaguar (Indirectly also looking at GameBoy and GameBoy colour games) styled Platformers as in its own it is its own genre as they did many things that aren't done in modern games or done before this time in gaming.

I want to talk about one thing that is in the standard platformer of that era that I am not willing to include in to my game and that is the lives system. In the day of arcades the lives system was used to get more money from the player as when they die so many times they would have no lives, to get more, put in more money in to the arcade cabinet.
This was carried on to the NES and is so ingrained it is still used. I wish to allow people to see how many times they have died but I also wish people to not get frustrated at the game itself due to an arbitrary number of deaths setting them back to the beginning of the level.
This was completely removed from all games when hell froze over. I mean you would never look at "New Super Mario Bros. Wii U" or even at games like "Scott Pilgrim" to use such an awful system that is so outdated and rubbish (can you tell I'm being sarcastic?)
Okay so games that use this system add nothing but cheap challenge. Now on to the next thing that actually explains what I bloody mean.

In video games there are four types of difficulty and only one is good. Honest Difficulty, Cheap Difficulty, Trick Difficulty and Gross Difficulty. While these are not officially recognized by basically anyone, they are recognized by me and a few people on game Dev forums. Well? What do they mean?

Honest Difficulty: This is the sort of difficulty that comes from the last stage of "Mario Bros" or from all but one level of "Super Meat Boy". This difficulty comes from you needing to master the games mechanics, knowing how the games works and being able to actually play the game. This is the type of difficulty that is based on nothing less than skill and makes you feel super rewarded when you finish it.
Cheap Difficulty: Oh god I hate this but I need to talk about this. This is a type of difficulty that is the kind of difficulty you can get pissed off about. It is the difficulty that stunts you getting forwards by using cheap tricks like a lives system. Other cheap tricks in this difficulty is that of paths that set you back, luck based progression and God Damn CHOICE SYSTEMS THAT IF YOU MAKE A WRONG CHOICE YOU ARE BACK TO THE START AND GOD DAMN IT.
Trick Difficulty: Luck and Remembering. That is this. If you want to know the definition of this and to know how it feels then follow this link. But in short this is the difficulty that forces you to remember every detail of the level and then it be pure luck weather you get through. GOD DAMN.
Gross Difficulty: You must win, but not only that but you must win at a game that has no curve in difficulty, It starts as it means to go on. WITH A BRICK ON THE ACCELERATION, A HOSE ON THE EXHAUST PIPE AND A BOMB FOR AN AIR BAG. You must learn to play a game that kills you for one mistake or that just has bad mechanics or game-play.


Nostalgia Vs Good But Retro

Oh how I uh-ed, oh how I ah-ed over where to put this but this is something I feel justified placing here because it is a large part of why old games are just so loved by so many people. This is also a little look at indie conventions however it is better to talk about nostalgia as a whole compared to just putting it in several segments.
Despite what many may say Nostalgia is not necessarily a bad thing. Nostalgia is just the idea you perceiving childhood memories with rosy retrospection. it isn't a bad emotion but it most defiantly is a very exploitable emotion. Just like 90% of the articles from Cracked.com, the majority of retro-Games are designed around exploiting the innate nostalgia creates by their product.
There are two games here that fit in to either side of the Vs in the title and those games are "Shovel Knight" an amazing game that uses the retro styled graphics to enhance the game and "Kid Icarus: Uprising" a game that's only two unique qualities are It is the only Icarus game yoy can play on a new console and the fact that it physically assaults you, I'm not joking, I have this game and because of the aweful controlls it comes with a little stand that you rest the 3DS on and it flipping hurts.
Shovel knight uses the purposely low res' graphics as a way to make the game more fun and also more accurate.