17 replies to this topic

[Nico]

What are your opinions on games and their difficulty these days as opposed to the 'Nintendo Hard' games of yesteryear. I've personally noticed that with the more modern consoles, true challenges have basically disappeared from gaming completely, with only a few rare games being an exception. Far too many games take it easy on you with checkpoints all over the place, and when a game decides that it DOES want to be challenging, it does so in a cheap way, such as simply upping the amount of damage enemies do and reducing the amount they take, rather than actually providing a truly challenging experience.

There are a few games I've noticed these days that offer real challenges, however. Hard Core mode on Dead Space 2 was pretty hard. For those who don't know about it, it allowed you only 3 saves throughout the entire game, and a death reset you back to your last save file. This was for a roughly 10 hour long game (if you knew your way around). Though it was the 'hardest' difficulty level on the game, the enemies didn't do monstrous amounts of damage or anything; it was like playing Normal difficulty but with some classic style handicaps.

Then, of course, when people talk about difficult games, there is a niche crowd of gamers who have experienced the awesome Demon's Souls/Dark Souls games which provide devastating enemies who can all kill you, but you feel like you're in control of your destiny due to the fact that, with proper skill, all of them can be taken on in a strategic way which will keep you alive and push you forward to victory.

The sad thing? That's about the only games that come to my mind for real difficulty these days. I kinda miss the old days of Contra and Super Mario: The Lost Levels. What do you guys think?

(Sorry for the REALLY long post.)

[Jonke]

You should give diablo 3 a try then when it gets released. It will probably have "Hardcore mode" which means if you die, you have to start all over with a new character.

but if we talk about Nintendo games, i would say hardest dificulty on brawl was quite a challenge.( The Subspace Emissary) especially tabu.

Edited by Jonke, 30 October 2011 - 03:05 PM.

[StreetPassWanter]

What I think happened is that in the beginning, companies were new to video games. So they put it extra-hard to experiment. What happened is that they realized it frustrated gamers, and they made it easier. But then true gamers would still be frustrated because they survived the frustrating games and now have to play super easy games compared to those games. But that's Link-logic.

Edited by Link, 30 October 2011 - 03:04 PM.

[Bill Cipher]

While I do agree that Diffculty has shrunken, it still exists. No more proof is needed then a game such as Devil Survivor Overclocked.
I also believe that the challenge hasn't vanishe, it's just that gamers have gotten better at gaming and that game companies have yet to respond.

[Jonke]

They also have changed their target audience over the years. Most companies are targeting their games to the "casual players" because casual players are the majority of the playerbase therefore leaving hardcore gamers unhappy.

Edited by Jonke, 30 October 2011 - 03:35 PM.

[Auzzie Wingman]

Hmm, don't know about you guys, but I'm 20. I've had about 17 years of video gaming under my belt.
While I do agree that games do feel they have gotten easier over the years, I will say this.

I do not expect my skill level to remain constant over 17 years.

A lot of people consider games like old school Mega Man and Mario games to be extremely hard in comparison to their modern successors. I do not see this.

As I said before, I recently got the Platinum Trophy for Uncharted 2. I have been saying that Hard Mode was seemingly more difficult than Crushing (which is like Very Hard). That said, video games are more a learning complex. Difficulty levels mean nothing if you adapt your thinking capabilities.

[Caius Casshern Sins]

Hmm, don't know about you guys, but I'm 20. I've had about 17 years of video gaming under my belt.
While I do agree that games do feel they have gotten easier over the years, I will say this.

I do not expect my skill level to remain constant over 17 years.

A lot of people consider games like old school Mega Man and Mario games to be extremely hard in comparison to their modern successors. I do not see this.

As I said before, I recently got the Platinum Trophy for Uncharted 2. I have been saying that Hard Mode was seemingly more difficult than Crushing (which is like Very Hard). That said, video games are more a learning complex. Difficulty levels mean nothing if you adapt your thinking capabilities.

I have to agree with Auzzie.

[Xiombarg]

It doesn't seem to be consistent to me. Some games are easy and others are hard.
I'm not including RPGs, because those are just grinding games. That is annoying, not difficult.
From my experiences, games have only gotten easier. Sure, Megaman and Contra were challenging, but once I've played them several times, they are easy. Sure, there will always be Ghosts and Goblins and the Silver Surfer, but they aren't hard because they're hard.

The most challenging games (for the right reasons) to me are the Touhou games, The Legend of Zelda(The second quest), the Indie hard as crap games, and Banjo Tooie(or it may just be because my dying controller.)

But game targeting will always change. There are massive amounts of targets in each audience.

Edited by Pyro, 30 October 2011 - 05:03 PM.

[Zuperman]

Recently I've been trying to be more skilled at the games I play, by 100% completing them. I've done this with OoT 3D and SMG2 so far though, will do so with quite a few games to come.

[Auzzie Wingman]

lol Pyro, I knew Touhou would end up in this discussion.

[Brian6330]

I agree with Auzzie.

I like my games with challenge but not too much. While I do like the challenge of "old-school" games, I think that they could be slightly easier.

If anyone here is looking for (a) challenging game(s) then check out the Bit. trip series. They're difficult, but yet still fun. When you finally pass a part of the level you've been stuck on, you feel great


I also hope that the new Rayman game will be around the difficulty of the first or a little easier, as that is the right difficulty for me.


Another thing I noticed with games, besides challenge slightly decreasing and gamers getting more skilled is that some games are losing their value/worth. You pay x amount of money for the game, to realize at the end that it isn't really that great. But, there has been some nice masterpieces in the recent years, in general; gaming is slowly at a decline imo. Yes, there's lots of good games released, but it's not as much and diverse as it used to be a few years back...


That's all I wanted to share.

Edited by Brian6330, 30 October 2011 - 06:27 PM.

[Nico]

Yes, I do agree that gamers are getting better at gaming itself, and I also tend to agree that many game designers are targeting the casual audience far more than the hardcore audience these days. However, it's also a fact that a lot of games are just designed to be easier on the player, even in the more 'hardcore' areas. For instance: Call of Duty's Veteran mode. The enemies are brutally accurate, do absurd(ly realistic) damage and will kill you repeatedly. However, the checkpoints are peppered throughout the levels so often that you can just learn the enemy positions after a few deaths, trudge forward, take them out and move along. This isn't so much of a problem for the game as it is for the fact that, when looking for a hardcore challenge, they're kind of missing the point. We don't want to die over and over again in the same spot because we have to learn where the enemies are to stand a chance; we want to always stand a chance but have it be a TRUE challenge.

That being said, I was possibly a bit harsh on games these days. There are a lot of difficult games created for modern consoles, it's just that they don't all share the 'hardcore' feel. I also enjoy a lot of the more casual games, so I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing that all games aren't soul-crushingly difficult. I was just kind of wondering what happened to the 'How do I beat this' as opposed to 'When will I beat this'.

Another thing I noticed with games, besides challenge slightly decreasing and gamers getting more skilled is that some games are losing their value/worth. You pay x amount of money for the game, to realize at the end that it isn't really that great. But, there has been some nice masterpieces in the recent years, in general; gaming is slowly at a decline imo. Yes, there's lots of good games released, but it's not as much and diverse as it used to be a few years back...

I agree that a lot of games are losing their value these days, what with a full price tag being shoved onto every little thing released on disc, even if it's only about 10 hours long (thank you Capcom [lolwhut, Capcom?] for saving us some money by releasing MvC3 Ultimate Edition at $40 rather than $60).

Of course, there are still lots of games worth the money, and though gaming is sort of declining, it's gonna pick back up again as soon as the economy does. There are several games that were released this year alone that were worth the $60 price tag ($40 for some of my nice little 3DS titles), and once the value of the American dollar (I do not know the state of other regions' economies, so I can't comment on them) goes up, gaming will be a little better off for it.

[Zuperman]

What I hate is annoying and cheap difficulty.

[AMAC]

I think that games are definitely easier than they were in the days of the NES. I think that's because back then, developers could fit much less content into a game, so they made them harder so that the player wouldn't complete it within an hour. Personally, I think that the current difficulty levels in games are good and I also like the idea of having optional hints for players when they are stuck.

[HaHa-No]

Oooooh, good thread.

I'm still 10, so of course I'm going to find games difficult. Which results in me playing easy if there's the option -w-.

But, I'm better at retro games then I am at modern ones. Don't ask, I just find the shorter lengths, platforming, and generally easier to kill enemies easier :b. I beat very very few games in the time it is average. The only one I did was Alice: Madness Returns, combat is easy in it, but if you get any frame rate drops at all the already pretty difficult platforming can get near impossible :b. Do you know why it's tricky full stop? Checkpoints and quick-saving. You can not save the game. And checkpoints, as far as I remember, don't save the game after exiting. So this means, you can only save by hoping for a quick-save. The game itself is pretty easy, but this mechanic makes it all the more challenging.

Anywho, I think if anything, games are only a tiny bit harder.

Edited by HaHa-No, 30 October 2011 - 11:51 PM.

[Garolymar]

Bleh, Difficulty doesn't really matter much to me, If the boss has more HP or whatever it just means you gotta wack it in the face a few more times. I'm always up for a good puzzle though, or tricky jumps in a platformer. But yeah either way hard ball busting games are still out and about you just gotta look for them. And if you can't any there's about 2 decades of ball busting games sitting around ebay and craigslist just waiting to be bought. Sorry if I didn't add much to the conversation, I'm just rambling as I try to go to sleep.

[Bartman2]

Three words: Super Meat Boy.

[Elric]

I don't mind easier games, mainly because most of them still have good quality. Gaming has almost changed to cinematic interactive movies (like heavy rain, and uncharted) and it's not a bad thing. Now, I also suck at games, so its nice that they aren't all hard and frustrating. A few games I can think of that are considered pretty hard are castlevania, and of course, dark souls/demon souls. I actually have both dark souls and demon souls and actually enjoy it quite a bit because every time you die you learn something, and develop strategies for each enemy. Sometimes you fight a giant knight or gargoyle, or fight a whole mob of enemies that can do damage in numbers.