It’s Monday, which means that it’s time for another edition of the Perspective. It looks like many of you caught a glimpse of my pilot column last week, and I truly appreciate the comments that I’ve received both online and offline. Thankfully, the markets have stabilized a bit from last week’s depths.
Why…so…DIFFICULT?
If you remember, last week I asked you what Mega Man 9, WipEout HD, Ninja Gaiden, and Devil May Cry 3 all have in common. If you guessed that unforgiving difficulty was the commonality, you are right. Indeed, we’ve seen the gradual reintroduction of games with difficulty levels so taxing that it brings back memories of some truly daunting games from the 8-bit and 16-bit eras. Mega Man 9 and WipEout HD are more recent examples, but it can be argued that Ninja Gaiden and Devil May Cry 3 are two games that really put the hurt on unsuspecting players.
I understand that there was a time when video games used to be tough. The original Castlevania and the first and third Ninja Gaiden adventures on the NES were tough as nails. Castlevania‘s design was a hybrid of action and platforming, and players who have had experience with Castlevania can likely recall some frustrating times trying to clear a jump only to be struck by an oncoming Medusa Head and wind up falling into the endless chasm. Ninja Gaiden tested our patience in 1989 with similar tactics made even more frustrating by forcing players to replay the nigh-impossible last act from its very beginning if they were defeated by the Jaquio. If you beat these games, or other ones that I’m sure you could add to the list, then you had proven your mettle to… yourself, and maybe your friends.
Of course, at that time, video gaming was still relatively niche… so gamers were expected to be severely tested. As we’re now gaming in a time when a much wider spectrum of players make up the now-vast playing community, we’ve seen a more tempered level of difficulty out there. Some self-proclaimed “hardcore” players have bemoaned this trend, but I’ve never been one of these people. My gaming skill has always been middle-of-the-road; while I’ve excelled at some games, I’ve been generally competent playing many others. My difficulty setting is usually on either normal or easy, mainly because video games now are more of an experience; I enjoy seeing all that a game has to offer. If a game is too hard, you wind up missing out on the overall experience if you give up or you wind up spending countless hours on one level trying to get that timing just right after repeat play upon repeat play. It can be punishing… and, now that I’m 36 years old, I don’t have the time that I had 20+ years ago to play a game until I get everything just right. You know… the whole work/social life thing.
Enter the games that I mentioned during the open, all of which I have played. Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox was sheer hell. Whose brilliant design decision was it to make the very first boss a controller-breaking encounter? Seriously. Doesn’t it make more sense to gradually ramp up the difficulty so that a player has invested some time and interest into the game? I’m sorry, if I can’t even get by the first boss encounter after repeated efforts, then that’s it. I’m not wasting any more time. Not only did I blow $50 on the game, but I forever lost those hours that I spent on such a fruitless venture. Sure, I’ll get comments from some of you who beat the game and will consider me weaksauce, and that’s fine; however, I can assuredly vouch for many others who bought the game, played it for a short time, and wound up trading it back in quickly. Tecmo attempted to atone for its design decision by releasing Ninja Gaiden Black some time later, by I was personally soured by the whole thing and never bothered.
Devil May Cry 3 for the PlayStation 2 was another ridiculous effort. While defenders of the game will argue that it’s a more technical game in terms of having to block consistently and using the right moves to succeed, I didn’t care about that when I was consistently having trouble getting very far in the game. At least, unlike Ninja Gaiden, I was able to dispatch a couple of bosses along the way… but DMC3 was relentless. I can only imagine how players new to the series, who might have spent the money on it because of friends’ recommendations or review scores, must have felt after a short time. The original Devil May Cry was tough, sure, but there were forgiving difficulty settings for players who struggled and died and few times. As for Devil May Cry 3? It was decided to make the game even harder than it was in Japan. Brilliant move… for sadists. As with Ninja Gaiden Black, we saw a more accessible version of Devil May Cry 3 in a Special Edition a bit later on, but it didn’t excuse the oversight of adjustable difficulty settings in the original game… that unsuspecting consumers spent $30 more for at retail.
To WipEout HD‘s credit, there’s actually a more gradual ramping up of the difficulty curve– at least for the first two stages of the game’s Campaign Mode. After that, however, there’s a frightening increase in the game’s difficulty. The track layouts are considerably more challenging, and the AI of opposing racers ramps up quickly at the same time. In addition, higher medal classes are required to unlock subsequent stages, and winning any medal above bronze becomes a taxing endeavor. I can completely understand the last stage or two being tough (as they should be), but having this much trouble less than halfway through an eight-stage Campaign is deserving of a bit of criticism. Perhaps it’s possible to devote blocks of time to practice races to really get the technical parts of troubling races down, but the AI becomes so aggressive that it might not even matter. I don’t necessarily think that this takes away from the overall game (as I noted in my review), since there’s online play and that the overall package is one that shouldn’t be missed out on, but I believe that the game could have been a standout with a more even difficulty curve in place.
My last example, Mega Man 9, is a tough one to argue because of the series’ roots. Mega Man 9 is an obvious throwback to the series glory days on the NES; look at the screens and listen to the (awesome) music for all the proof you need. Mega Man games on the NES were known for being tough. I never beat the first game, but I did get through Mega Man 2 and Mega Man 3 after some pretty lengthy sessions and a few temper tantrums. Mega Man 9 reminds me more of the first Mega Man game due to its difficulty. Much like the other NES games that I’ve mentioned, deaths in Mega Man 9 usually result from timing-related mishaps… like thinking that you’re in the clear for a jump only to have an enemy zip in out of seemingly nowhere and send you hurtling to a fatal fall. Based on this comparison, it’s hard to put Mega Man 9 in the same discussion as the other games mentioned here. After all, there were no difficulty settings in Mega Man; success came from repeated plays (and maybe the use of some maps and codes from Nintendo Power)… so perhaps it’s unfair to expect anything different from this title.
In my opinion, adjustable difficulty settings should be the norm for most games. If I want to play a game to experience its story, its characters, and sample its gameplay without much frustration, I should be able to play a game in Easy or Normal modes. If I want to really challenge myself, I should be able to ramp up the difficulty accordingly. The Metal Gear Solid games are perfect examples of what I’m looking for: you can still experience the whole storyline and get a decent challenge when playing on Easy, but you can also make the game tougher to test your skills if you so choose.
The real question that I have here is: Do games really need to be frustratingly hard to be good? I don’t believe so. Don’t most people play games for fun, or for an escape from daily life? For me, it’s about playing as a cool hero, or maybe putting myself on the ice or baseball diamond and helping my team to victory. It’s not really about proving that I have elite skill to internet denizens. Sure, I respect and even admire players who can beat games like these, but does that make these people better than me? So what if it does? It’s still not going to make me think that my purchase of a game that I can’t make any decent progress in was worth it.
What do you think? Leave me some comments and let me know. I’ll address ‘em next week.
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