Twitch streamer goes viral after discovering how difficult 90s video games were

Michael Gwilliam
Storymodebae gets game over screen in Lion King

A Twitch streamer was left absolutely stunned after trying the 16-bit versions of Disney’s Lion King of the SNES and Sega Genesis – a game known for its infamous difficulty.

Video games of the 80s and 90s were designed quite differently than games of today. While today’s titles have extremely generous checkpoints, continues, and easier options, games of yesteryear were still easing away from the arcade-style quarter-eating formula.

For streamer Storymodebae, what was supposed to be a fond venture into the PS5 port of the 16-bit “classics” soon turned into a disaster.

Right off the bat, she started having trouble on the very first level, constantly dying to random bugs, which she soon learned she wasn’t allowed to touch at all.

Eventually, to just even get through the stage, she was forced to look up a walkthrough on how to beat the level’s boss.

While she managed to get through that portion, the game’s second level was where Storymodebae went viral. After attempting a platforming section at the very beginning and dying almost immediately a few times, her game was over in the worst way possible.

Instead of starting her back at the beginning of the level, it booted her back to the title screen to restart the game from level one.

“Game over?!” she gasped. “What do you mean game over? What do you mean?!”

The streamer uploaded that section from the video to Twitter where it spread like wildfire, racking up over 4 million views on the platform.

“Games in the 90s really didn’t care about auto save or our feelings at ALL,” she captioned the clip.

Storymodebae plays Lion King
Storymodebae was shocked after being sent back to the title screen.

As it turns out, however, this game could have been a lot easier and the developers were forced to make it more challenging because of the popularity of game rentals.

According to the developers at Westwood Studio, Disney told them to make the game harder so players couldn’t beat it within the Blockbuster rental period.

In any case, it just goes to show how much different the video game industry is today than it was 20 years ago. At least now not every game on the market has a Dark Souls level of difficulty.

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About The Author

Michael Gwilliam is a senior writer at Dexerto based in Ontario, Canada. He specializes in Overwatch, Smash, influencers, and Twitch culture. Gwilliam has written for sites across Canada including the Toronto Sun. You can contact him at michael.gwilliam@dexerto.com or on Twitter @TheGwilliam