Ade
;3
A few years ago I set out to beat the entire From Software Soulslike catalog without summons or cheese. It took awhile, and sometimes I would have to over-level to make up for my own personal deficiencies, but eventually I beat them and all of their DLCs (even the goddam Frozen Outskirts of Dark Souls 2).
I then went back and beat them again at reasonable levels if I felt that over-grinding was needed on the first attempt. I improved a lot, and on my most recent run of Bloodborne, for example, I didn't have to level grind anywhere and finished with six deaths for the entire run. Not bad, in my opinion. But one thorn in my side continued to bother me...
I was always too afraid to try Sekiro because I knew stat upgrades were limited and that over-leveling was not possible. But against my better judgment, about a month ago I finally got it, and suffered through and beat the game. I beat most of the bosses by following their mechanics, with only the occasional sprinkle of cheese as needed. This took a tremendous amount of trial and error, and I had to consult guides for bosses that I couldn't figure out. But even with a guide, an optional boss like Owl Father still took me 50+ tries to beat because of how punishing the reaction times were.
Contrary to the popular claim, I don't get an overwhelming sense of satisfaction from any of these games when I get stuck on something and then finally win. Rather, I get a sense of relief and I say to myself, "Thank goodness I never have to do that again." If it takes me 100 tries to beat a boss, I don't consider that a win. I just look at it objectively: If I win on the 100th attempt, then in reality the game beat me 99 to 1. I actually feel worse about myself than when I started. This means that difficulty alone doesn't do it for me. I know myself better than this; I prefer exploration and observation of interesting environments.
Seven years ago, my brother got me Spiderman 2018 for PS4 as a Christmas gift. He called me a month later to ask what I thought of it, since he had recently played it himself. We shared our experiences and talked about the wonderful exploration, traversal, and combat. But I noticed one thing: Not once did he ask me what difficulty I played it on. Because, like most people, he didn't think it mattered. (I honestly don't remember; probably Normal.)
For gamers like me, who only feel a sense of defeat after finally winning after X attempts, high difficulty is not something to be happy about. It's just a time-consuming obstacle to experiencing the game's content. In the case of a game like Sekiro, there's a chance that I wouldn't have seen all of the various environments if I lacked the skill to get through the earlier areas. There's no option to go somewhere else and level up. You either beat the boss, or you get stuck. Well, I am stubborn, so I'm going to see the entire damn game. I paid for it, after all.
In the end, it would seem I suffered through the entire game just so I could earn the right to say, "I hate this game," without people saying, "Oh, it's just because you suck." No... I really don't. I forced myself to beat this game and "got good." But I didn't get any enjoyment out of it. I hated every second of it.
I think developers like FromSoft make hard games for the purpose of generating controversy, which leads to curiosity, which leads to increased sales. I think the argument that they are visionaries in the gaming industry are over-exaggerated. They're just doing the same thing NES developers did back in the 1980's and 90's: Vastly increasing the playtime needed to beat a game by adding near-unavoidable repeat attempts due to pitting the player against impossible odds. (Edit: The exception to this is Elden Ring; which is huge and takes a long time to 100% clear regardless of its difficulty.)
There is a reason this mindset was left back in the previous century, and it's because a lot of the games sucked. Decades later, games became much easier to the point where there was no challenge at all, which was also bad. But now, with the industry's recent obsession with "hard for the sake of being hard" games, I feel the pendulum has swung too far back in the other direction once again.
Keep in mind, this argument applies to single-player, offline games (and maybe some element of co-op). Competitive multiplayer games will always be sweaty by virtue of human competition. But this notion that a single player game should only be beatable if you treat it as a near-full-time job is silly and over the top.
So yeah, I got good, but I didn't get any satisfaction from it. Where is this satisfaction I was supposed to get?
I then went back and beat them again at reasonable levels if I felt that over-grinding was needed on the first attempt. I improved a lot, and on my most recent run of Bloodborne, for example, I didn't have to level grind anywhere and finished with six deaths for the entire run. Not bad, in my opinion. But one thorn in my side continued to bother me...
I was always too afraid to try Sekiro because I knew stat upgrades were limited and that over-leveling was not possible. But against my better judgment, about a month ago I finally got it, and suffered through and beat the game. I beat most of the bosses by following their mechanics, with only the occasional sprinkle of cheese as needed. This took a tremendous amount of trial and error, and I had to consult guides for bosses that I couldn't figure out. But even with a guide, an optional boss like Owl Father still took me 50+ tries to beat because of how punishing the reaction times were.
Contrary to the popular claim, I don't get an overwhelming sense of satisfaction from any of these games when I get stuck on something and then finally win. Rather, I get a sense of relief and I say to myself, "Thank goodness I never have to do that again." If it takes me 100 tries to beat a boss, I don't consider that a win. I just look at it objectively: If I win on the 100th attempt, then in reality the game beat me 99 to 1. I actually feel worse about myself than when I started. This means that difficulty alone doesn't do it for me. I know myself better than this; I prefer exploration and observation of interesting environments.
Seven years ago, my brother got me Spiderman 2018 for PS4 as a Christmas gift. He called me a month later to ask what I thought of it, since he had recently played it himself. We shared our experiences and talked about the wonderful exploration, traversal, and combat. But I noticed one thing: Not once did he ask me what difficulty I played it on. Because, like most people, he didn't think it mattered. (I honestly don't remember; probably Normal.)
For gamers like me, who only feel a sense of defeat after finally winning after X attempts, high difficulty is not something to be happy about. It's just a time-consuming obstacle to experiencing the game's content. In the case of a game like Sekiro, there's a chance that I wouldn't have seen all of the various environments if I lacked the skill to get through the earlier areas. There's no option to go somewhere else and level up. You either beat the boss, or you get stuck. Well, I am stubborn, so I'm going to see the entire damn game. I paid for it, after all.
In the end, it would seem I suffered through the entire game just so I could earn the right to say, "I hate this game," without people saying, "Oh, it's just because you suck." No... I really don't. I forced myself to beat this game and "got good." But I didn't get any enjoyment out of it. I hated every second of it.
I think developers like FromSoft make hard games for the purpose of generating controversy, which leads to curiosity, which leads to increased sales. I think the argument that they are visionaries in the gaming industry are over-exaggerated. They're just doing the same thing NES developers did back in the 1980's and 90's: Vastly increasing the playtime needed to beat a game by adding near-unavoidable repeat attempts due to pitting the player against impossible odds. (Edit: The exception to this is Elden Ring; which is huge and takes a long time to 100% clear regardless of its difficulty.)
There is a reason this mindset was left back in the previous century, and it's because a lot of the games sucked. Decades later, games became much easier to the point where there was no challenge at all, which was also bad. But now, with the industry's recent obsession with "hard for the sake of being hard" games, I feel the pendulum has swung too far back in the other direction once again.
Keep in mind, this argument applies to single-player, offline games (and maybe some element of co-op). Competitive multiplayer games will always be sweaty by virtue of human competition. But this notion that a single player game should only be beatable if you treat it as a near-full-time job is silly and over the top.
So yeah, I got good, but I didn't get any satisfaction from it. Where is this satisfaction I was supposed to get?
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