I find myself in the same situation. I realized it had been years since I had played Ninja Gaiden (a game at which I used to rule quite fully for at least the first three or four levels), so I downloaded it and found myself constantly screwing up the simplest moves. Not dying necessarily, but not pulling of the smooth, effortless level runthroughs I used to do. A lot of it is probably just being out of practice. A game like NG is all about reflexes and split second timing that your body forgets if you don't remind it.

There is something to 'classical training' though. Just like in all those kung fu movies, someone might be faster or stronger than you, but experience and patience will win out every time. Remember, we're the generation that slogged our way through the Marsh Cave and Elfland on the *original* FF cart, bugs and all, and we're the generation that spent hours and hours, followed by more hours, bombing walls and burning bushes in LoZ because we didn't *have* walkthroughs to tell us where the secrets are. Hell, we even had games that we had to *read the manuals* to play, because there was no such thing as a tutorial level! It sounds corny, but those kind of experiences do develop a patience, and an inherent understanding of underlying game mechanics, that a lot of gamers today just don't have. My two cents.

Back to the topic at hand though--what kind of controller do you use to play your emulator with? I think mine's called a Dual Logic, something like that; anyway it looks exactly like a PS2 controller. I have to say, it IS difficult to play those games with another kind of joystick, after conditioning your hands to just two face buttons (or four face buttons with a different layout, in the case of the SNES.) That doesn't matter so much with slower games like Final Fantasy or whatever, but when it comes to NG, or Mega Man, where a split second can be life or death...I imagine it makes a difference.

lordsathien wrote:

I find it amusing that Ninja Gaiden now gives you trouble when your name and icon are both hawks. Damn birds!

Ha! That is ironic I guess. Hawks (real ones, not the asshole kind that knock you off cliffs) are my favorite animal, and Hawk has been my nickname for many, many years.
The bats in NG actually give me more trouble than the birds, though. They always fucking yo-yo right into me whenever I try to jump them. Bastards.

I do second what Fred mentioned, though. Although I try to avoid using them, save states in platformers has probably eroded my skill more than I care to admit. There's something to be said for being forced to replay a part of the game you know, to perfect skills, before you move on to the next bit. It sure makes you better at what you do.