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So I've really been thinking about taking on difficult games for the past few months; not (just!
) because I want to be this super badass gamer, but also because I find in gaming as an actually productive skill to harness, akin to learning a new instrument or reading. Like pretty much every other person out there who owns a phone, it's unbelievably easy to just gradually submerge your brain in slop and doomscroll into oblivion; it's not a good feeling, and playing video games has the possibility to devolve into that too; so many days I've put on some stupid video essay or game review/let's play in the background and just button mash or waddle around in Resident Evil 4 or Haunting Ground or Genshin Impact(grrrr...), then get frustrated because I kept losing.
However, from the essays I've read and watched about game design, there is a possibility in difficult games to engage and force improvement from players instead of coddle them. I started playing Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution's Quest Mode, learning about the rock-paper-scissors mechanic, and asked different players in the Discord about them to improve; nothing like actually playing against real players, which is the point of all fighting games, but it made my mind feel so much brighter throughout the day, like I was actually thinking about the stuff I was missing and improving from it. Case in point: I want to get into a difficult game, put in some time in my life for it, and actually use it as a productive skill I improve in instead of as slop I just gurgle for hours.
So I stopped trying to think about difficulty in games as a hurdle and I started to respect them; but I ran into another roadblock - frustration. Because of course, while just mashing buttons and watching bad guys melt away like paper over and over is really boring, getting your ass beat isn't going to make you feel good either. Here's the thing, however - there are some games where getting your ass beat doesn't feel that bad - even if its already my forth or fifth try. Here's what I think is one of the things going on - character design/story as a way that services difficulty.
One of the games where I'm actively thinking it's alright to lose because it means I get to play the game more is God Hand. Gene has the God Hand, one of the most powerful weapons in the world, capable of spanking some poor hooligan halfway across the arena; but he's only had it for a few weeks at most; and even if he isn't a complete newbie to fighting (as we can see from the cutscene where he first meets Olivia), we can already discern that he isn't the kind of cowboy badass that gets out of every fight unscathed - or even win them (his in-game model permanently has a bandaid on his cheek, come on!).
So now we're playing this underdog character, who is just as cocky as the shitheads that get in our way. They punch us in the balls, we do it back, but then we also get to kick their head against a wall like twenty times well after they're dead. It's fun to witness as we do funny stuff like this on the screen, but it's also fun to both win and lose encounters because Gene doesn't really have to live up to being some legend, he can get stomped and do it back just the same.
On the topic of characters regarded as legends though, this is where I also think some of my frustration comes from in other difficult games. In Mega Man Zero 2, there is an enemy I fucking despise. The Carryarms on the Train of Neo Arcadia....Rrrrrhhhhhghh... They just fly in, roll into you, then turn direction and roll back, and before you know it, you're getting juggled by it and another one that just spawned into the screen. In every single cutscene Zero is supposed to be this legend that sacrificed himself years ago, came back then singlehandedly led a losing army to survival, but now he can't even handle a fucking wheel?? Every time I died on the train level I became increasingly disillusioned from the game. By losing, the game's story and mythos just kind of collapses on itself: I was failing to live up to the legend.
So that's kind of something that's been on my mind for quite some time regarding the games I've been playing. I've never really had an opportunity to talk about or analyse (albeit kind of haphazardly) the ways in which the various aspects of game design and production congeal together as the final interactive product; so I'm hoping I might be able to use this as a platform! I obviously don't dislike Mega Man Zero 2 and the rest of the games, and I really want to get back into MMZ2 and finally beat it once and for all. This is also the first time I'm writing an essay like this - something where I can be more playful (this is a forum, after all), but still have to get my point proven. I think I may not have given that much evidence when I'm actually in the meat of the essay, but there is a word limit after all. Thanks everyone!
) because I want to be this super badass gamer, but also because I find in gaming as an actually productive skill to harness, akin to learning a new instrument or reading. Like pretty much every other person out there who owns a phone, it's unbelievably easy to just gradually submerge your brain in slop and doomscroll into oblivion; it's not a good feeling, and playing video games has the possibility to devolve into that too; so many days I've put on some stupid video essay or game review/let's play in the background and just button mash or waddle around in Resident Evil 4 or Haunting Ground or Genshin Impact(grrrr...), then get frustrated because I kept losing.However, from the essays I've read and watched about game design, there is a possibility in difficult games to engage and force improvement from players instead of coddle them. I started playing Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution's Quest Mode, learning about the rock-paper-scissors mechanic, and asked different players in the Discord about them to improve; nothing like actually playing against real players, which is the point of all fighting games, but it made my mind feel so much brighter throughout the day, like I was actually thinking about the stuff I was missing and improving from it. Case in point: I want to get into a difficult game, put in some time in my life for it, and actually use it as a productive skill I improve in instead of as slop I just gurgle for hours.
So I stopped trying to think about difficulty in games as a hurdle and I started to respect them; but I ran into another roadblock - frustration. Because of course, while just mashing buttons and watching bad guys melt away like paper over and over is really boring, getting your ass beat isn't going to make you feel good either. Here's the thing, however - there are some games where getting your ass beat doesn't feel that bad - even if its already my forth or fifth try. Here's what I think is one of the things going on - character design/story as a way that services difficulty.
One of the games where I'm actively thinking it's alright to lose because it means I get to play the game more is God Hand. Gene has the God Hand, one of the most powerful weapons in the world, capable of spanking some poor hooligan halfway across the arena; but he's only had it for a few weeks at most; and even if he isn't a complete newbie to fighting (as we can see from the cutscene where he first meets Olivia), we can already discern that he isn't the kind of cowboy badass that gets out of every fight unscathed - or even win them (his in-game model permanently has a bandaid on his cheek, come on!).
So now we're playing this underdog character, who is just as cocky as the shitheads that get in our way. They punch us in the balls, we do it back, but then we also get to kick their head against a wall like twenty times well after they're dead. It's fun to witness as we do funny stuff like this on the screen, but it's also fun to both win and lose encounters because Gene doesn't really have to live up to being some legend, he can get stomped and do it back just the same.
On the topic of characters regarded as legends though, this is where I also think some of my frustration comes from in other difficult games. In Mega Man Zero 2, there is an enemy I fucking despise. The Carryarms on the Train of Neo Arcadia....Rrrrrhhhhhghh... They just fly in, roll into you, then turn direction and roll back, and before you know it, you're getting juggled by it and another one that just spawned into the screen. In every single cutscene Zero is supposed to be this legend that sacrificed himself years ago, came back then singlehandedly led a losing army to survival, but now he can't even handle a fucking wheel?? Every time I died on the train level I became increasingly disillusioned from the game. By losing, the game's story and mythos just kind of collapses on itself: I was failing to live up to the legend.
So that's kind of something that's been on my mind for quite some time regarding the games I've been playing. I've never really had an opportunity to talk about or analyse (albeit kind of haphazardly) the ways in which the various aspects of game design and production congeal together as the final interactive product; so I'm hoping I might be able to use this as a platform! I obviously don't dislike Mega Man Zero 2 and the rest of the games, and I really want to get back into MMZ2 and finally beat it once and for all. This is also the first time I'm writing an essay like this - something where I can be more playful (this is a forum, after all), but still have to get my point proven. I think I may not have given that much evidence when I'm actually in the meat of the essay, but there is a word limit after all. Thanks everyone!
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