Sulphur on 18/1/2019 at 11:29
Quote Posted by Starker
Might as well also throw survival games that are actively trying to kill you into the mix. Robinson's Requiem, NEO Scavenger, Don't Starve, etc.
Initially I was thinking these would just go under dema's second category of 'learn wtf to do under duress', but if we're saying multitasking various resource requirements/timers at the same time, yes, the unforgiving limited-resource game (resources being time, materials, items, and so on) would definitely be a category of difficulty unto itself.
Of course that'd also include TBSes, RTSes, and god games like Homeworld, Starcraft, Civ, and Populous, but the survival 'em up is basically the intersection of limited personal perspective (first/third instead of omniscient commander/god) and resource management mechanics, so it's okay to have a generous definition.
RE: Arcade hard and Nintendo hard, surely that just sums up to twitch reflexes a la IWBTG and its ilk. And in any case, 'Nintendo Hard' is vague enough that the label doesn't account for the vastly different difficulty gradients depending on the game, platform, and console generation.
Judith on 18/1/2019 at 11:41
Dark Souls and Super Meat Boy from the recent era. From ye olde days, DM: Chaos Strikes Back. I loved 90-degree dungeon crawlers back then, but man, CSB was for basement masochists. Never finished it.
Starker on 18/1/2019 at 11:43
Nintendo Hard is more than just twitch reflexes, though. It also includes games like Final Fantasy. It's things like limited lives and continues, instant death hazards, no difficulty modes, etc. A lot of it was just artificial difficulty put in to lengthen the gameplay, requiring rote memorisation and perseverance rather than twitch skills.
Sulphur on 18/1/2019 at 11:57
Hmm. IWBTG has most of those attributes (masocore games in general do, that wikipedia article you linked calls out the equivalence of Ninty Hard and masocore), so I'd just tag it to masocore, or: bullshit difficulty. I've not played the NES FFs, but if you mean the spirit of constantly grinding XP to not get flattened by monsters in a new area/bosses, I get what you're saying.
Malf on 18/1/2019 at 11:58
Quote Posted by Judith
From ye olde days, DM: Chaos Strikes Back. I loved 90-degree dungeon crawlers back then, but man, CSB was for basement masochists. Never finished it.
DM & Chaos Strikes Back remain in my favourite games list to this day, and thanks to it (
http://dmweb.free.fr/) being free now, I fire up Dungeon Master at least once a year. And I
did complete CSB on the Atari ST when it came out :D
I still think DM's levelling and magic systems are my favourite RPG systems ever. I'd love for a modern game to use them. I know the closest modern equivalents for levelling are the Eder Scrolls games, but they don't capture the same feeling of accomplishment. Taking Halk, a barbarian with no mana stat whatsoever, and using an amulet to give him a single point to start with, then subsequently and successfully levelling him to be a full on spellcaster is just awesome. Really demonstrates how robust and flexible DM's system is.
Starker on 19/1/2019 at 01:04
Quote Posted by Sulphur
Hmm. IWBTG has most of those attributes (masocore games in general do, that wikipedia article you linked calls out the equivalence of Ninty Hard and masocore), so I'd just tag it to masocore, or: bullshit difficulty. I've not played the NES FFs, but if you mean the spirit of constantly grinding XP to not get flattened by monsters in a new area/bosses, I get what you're saying.
If you've played the early Wizardry games, that's kind of what early RPGs were like on NES. It's more than just the need to grind, it's the way everything is stacked against you. You only have a limited amount of spells per day and you can easily run into monsters way over your level, so you will get curbstomped even if you're good at the game. And you get very few hints at what to do, for example needing to search random tiles for important items.
icemann on 19/1/2019 at 03:17
I recall the Splatterhouse games were really damn hard.
Starker: There are some who prefer that style of no hand holding over present day games. Having to draw your own maps, note down any clues given etc etc. That moment when you figure something out on your own is great.
Starker on 19/1/2019 at 03:22
Slaughterhouse games?
Quote Posted by icemann
Starker: There are some who prefer that style of no hand holding over present day games. Having to draw your own maps, note down any clues given etc etc. That moment when you figure something out on your own is great.
That's different from giving absolutely no clues or hints what to do. And it's even worse when you get wrong hints, like in Simon's Quest.
Sure, maybe there are players who find trial and error gameplay fun or want to spend hours and days searching every inch of a massive gameworld tile by tile, but for most people it's just tedious busywork.
icemann on 19/1/2019 at 03:25
Splatterhouse.
Starker on 19/1/2019 at 05:19
Thinking about it a bit more, I don't think masocore really applies to Nintendo hard. A Nintendo hard game is enjoyable to play when it succeeds, even when it's very difficult, and the bad kind of frustrating when it fails -- the difference between a raised floor plate that triggers a trap that hurts you and an invisible trapdoor that drops you down in a pit of instakill spikes. But in a masocore game, you have the spikes fly up from the pit and kill you when you jump over it. Masocore is deliberately sadistic in order to be funny and/or cause pain to the player. The frustration is part of the appeal. With Nintendo Hard, more often than not, the frustrating aspects are either accidental (bad design, technical limitations, lack of playtesting, bad translation) or aimed at different goals (lengthening the gameplay and making the most out of limited content).
