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This has been a discussion for quite a while now and I was just talking about it with my wife. When you look at the NES era, up to about PS1, lots of games were extremely difficult. Into the PS2 generation up to now, most games have been easier after developers realized that people like to win. There's obviously difficulty exceptions, such as some of the souls games, Cuphead, etc, but for the most part, games have objectively become a lot easier.
Arguments about handholding taking away the exploration of a world (compare Morrowind, which has no quest markers, to Skyrim, which has precise markers) have existed for quite a while, and I'm curious what the stance is over here. Is this good, or bad?
As many of us know, a lot of the games from the 80s and 90s were created to be unfair, because of that coin-munching arcade philosophy, and to extend the length of a game from 30 minutes to instead be weeks, months, or even years. A lot of the "difficult" games that we discuss aren't difficult because of fair difficulty, but rather because the developers looked and said "Let's just throw some bullshit in there". Difficult platforming, one hit kills, crazy knockback, pixel perfect fights, etc. These create a game that is more unfair.
Now take a modern game like Sekiro. It's certainly a difficult game, but there wasn't many times when I was playing where I was thinking "I couldn't have possibly dodged that". Nearly every death was "I jumped instead of rolling", "I misread the attack", "I deflected at the wrong time"—A game can be hard but be fair. Many games have become "easier" in that sense because of basic quality of life features. Camera controls are much better, attacks feel tighter... But at the same time, some of these games I can just breeze through because there isn't much in my way.
Some people claim that games should have a single difficulty, but I'm reaching the point where I think games should have settings. I'm fine with difficult games, but sometimes I like to relax. On the other hand, I want to have to use a little bit of brain power to win. This is why Super Mario Wonder was a little upsetting to me, because there was very little difficulty. A very unique, fun game, but there wasn't too much challenge to even 100% the game. I don't like to be handheld and I like to figure things out myself. That said, I understand why some people would. I have an appreciation for games that have such settings to turn these things on or off, but so many games don't. On a different thread yesterday, I had a discussion about having checkpoints during bosses which, again, seems a little pointless to not allow a player to actually learn and accomplish a boss fight all in one go. The modern day problem is that many games are afraid to let the player fail.
My essay's over— What do you think? Are games too easy now, are they just the right difficulty? What's the best way to mitigate the dilemma?
Arguments about handholding taking away the exploration of a world (compare Morrowind, which has no quest markers, to Skyrim, which has precise markers) have existed for quite a while, and I'm curious what the stance is over here. Is this good, or bad?
As many of us know, a lot of the games from the 80s and 90s were created to be unfair, because of that coin-munching arcade philosophy, and to extend the length of a game from 30 minutes to instead be weeks, months, or even years. A lot of the "difficult" games that we discuss aren't difficult because of fair difficulty, but rather because the developers looked and said "Let's just throw some bullshit in there". Difficult platforming, one hit kills, crazy knockback, pixel perfect fights, etc. These create a game that is more unfair.
Now take a modern game like Sekiro. It's certainly a difficult game, but there wasn't many times when I was playing where I was thinking "I couldn't have possibly dodged that". Nearly every death was "I jumped instead of rolling", "I misread the attack", "I deflected at the wrong time"—A game can be hard but be fair. Many games have become "easier" in that sense because of basic quality of life features. Camera controls are much better, attacks feel tighter... But at the same time, some of these games I can just breeze through because there isn't much in my way.
Some people claim that games should have a single difficulty, but I'm reaching the point where I think games should have settings. I'm fine with difficult games, but sometimes I like to relax. On the other hand, I want to have to use a little bit of brain power to win. This is why Super Mario Wonder was a little upsetting to me, because there was very little difficulty. A very unique, fun game, but there wasn't too much challenge to even 100% the game. I don't like to be handheld and I like to figure things out myself. That said, I understand why some people would. I have an appreciation for games that have such settings to turn these things on or off, but so many games don't. On a different thread yesterday, I had a discussion about having checkpoints during bosses which, again, seems a little pointless to not allow a player to actually learn and accomplish a boss fight all in one go. The modern day problem is that many games are afraid to let the player fail.
My essay's over— What do you think? Are games too easy now, are they just the right difficulty? What's the best way to mitigate the dilemma?
