Games that made you better at gaming

It is widely accepted that NES/arcade era gaming was extremely punishing. Whilst I wasn't playing games back then, it seems to me that there's a trend in the market back towards 'Get Good' being a totally acceptable design choice. Perhaps this is a reaction to console gaming more closely replicating PC experiences. Perhaps it is a reaction to the over-casual Wii era.

Regardless, I certain feel there are a number of games in my recent gaming life which have been formative in my current gaming strengths, and I'm interested in hearing the forum's thoughts.

Do you feel like you have improved at video games over the last few years?

Are there any games which have improved your general skills beyond the genre of the actual game?

Whilst I'm fully expecting lots of people to mention the likes of Darks Souls and Celeste, maybe the games that improved you as a player aren't even notoriously hard. Perhaps it is down to the players you are playing against in an online shooter or racer, requiring you to Get Good in order to complete.

For me, Geometry Wars and Tetris both radically improved my twitch based reactions and mastery of the controller.

NES era games were tough because they were so short. Huge difficulty was a way to mask limited gameplay. Also home consoles borrowed from arcade “coin stealing” gameplay as it was the norm in the 80s

I actually feel as though my skills have waned over the years in some respects. I can still beat Super Mario Brothers in one sitting but when I played Final Fantasy X a few years ago I couldn’t do the 200 lightning bolt dodge challenge anymore, I just didn’t seem to have the reflexes for it.

Hard to say. I guess anything that involves a conscious effort improved my overall gaming ability, but I wouldn't always feel like I was improving at the time. One day I'd just suddenly seem a lot better at a game. I guess something just clicks or everything suddenly falls into place.

There have been a few games I've strove to get good at to varying degrees: like Tetris DS, Mario Kart DS, various Smash games, which may have improved transferable skills or made me think about game mechanics in a deeper way. There are some genres I'm still especially bad at though, like multiplayer shooters (despite the time I've poured into L4D2).

I will have improved at games generally over the past few years. Not as much as in my formative years but I'm only concerned about getting good at a few games I care about or put my time in to.