No, that was bad game design. Either from refusal to spend the time to implement responsive controls or through shit game design that was modeled after arcades where the goal was to kill the player to farm another quarter.
It's very possible to design a game that is both good but brutally difficult, but lot's not fool ourselves, a metric fuckton of games from that era were hard because of abominably bad game design.
No, that was bad game design. Either from refusal to spend the time to implement responsive controls or through shit game design that was modeled after arcades where the goal was to kill the player to farm another quarter.
It's very possible to design a game that is both good but brutally difficult, but lot's not fool ourselves, a metric fuckton of games from that era were hard because of abominably bad game design.