I've been wanting to write a post on the topic of very difficult games for a while now. This subject is on a lot of hardcore gamers and retro gamers minds for the longest times, especially with the rise of casual games that has been popularized by Nintendo's release of the Wii system and Zynga with their online casual game sensation Farmville. With the industries' new found demographic, developers have been condemned to creating casuals games or games with very easy difficulties. This can be dragged out to be a long discussion, so I plan on talking about some of the more difficult games that have come out now and how they try to keep games challenging and fresh.
Source: Youtube Channel IGNentertainment
This is possibly my 3-4th time posting this video of Super Meat Boy. I can't emphasize enough of how true it is to the retro days of gaming where players learned through making mistakes (not from an hour long tutorial), where rewards were given to those who excelled, extra content is scattered throughout the game, difficulty came from level design and is determined by skill, not unruly controls, bad creative decisions, and certainly not by chance or luck. Super Meat Boy uses a common system of short levels with difficult designs for the player to learn through. The more they fail, the more the player can get used to an area. I Wanna be the Guy (IWBTG) uses that same mechanic and has players dying over and over. This model of gameplay was used a lot in older games such as Contra, Castlevania, and Ninja Gaiden for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). Generally, it is platformers that is associated with hardcore games. I'm not sure why that is, but I assume it has to do with the standards that Super Mario Bros. set for games released after it. Platformers require timing, reaction speed, coordination, and a lot of memorizing in more difficult areas. Here are a few platformers I'd recommend trying out:
-Love+
-Spelunky (There's a bit of luck involved, but it is definitely difficult).
-I Wanna be the Guy (Recommended as the King of Hardcore at the moment)
-N+
-Super Meat Boy
-VVVVVV (Not exactly a platformer per se, but a lot of elements similar to it)
For current day standards of 3D graphics and complicated controls, it is rare to find a game that is challenging and difficult based on gameplay and design as most 3D action games suffer from clunky controls, horrid camera controls, unavoidable attacks from enemies that gives players no means of escape, terrible AI systems, and glitchy level designs. The perfect example I can think of for a hard game that was based off all its flaws is Golden Axe: Beast Rider. The game had a wonderful concept with challenging gameplay, but was overwhelmed with poor creative decisions that never gave the player the chance anyhow despite learning the game in and out. One game that had somewhat of a good design was Heavenly Sword, but was based off of patterns. The game I'm finding most fascinating and incredibly difficult is Demon's Souls.
Source: Youtube Channel jaferris06
There is so much that goes into what makes Demon's Souls challenging but fair. There is a lot of memorizing involved which saddened me that the enemies were going to be at the same exactly location each time. What I soon realized was that the situations may change and the player would have to react differently to the situation. One play through, the player may have gotten to the enemy easily and perform a critical hit from behind; however, a second run through the enemy may have turned around with all its buddies and attack you in a chain. There's also the dynamics of the different classes to choose from, the various weapons in use, and the numerous builds the player can level up to that change the way the game plays. Add in the ability for player to invade other player's games and kill them and you have that element of human interaction that most competitive gamers enjoy most: another intelligent human to challenge rather than a pre-programmed AI. The difficulty between playing against other players and playing against the game is different. How I look at it, playing a difficult game is like challenging the game designer. Demon's Souls is, at its core, difficult to begin with. The game starts off with a tutorial and with the player dying soon after and is reborn as a phantom with half the HP and power they had as a human being. Unlike a hack and slash, the player is limited to actions based on a stamina bar. The player would have to choose what actions to take at the right time as to not waste any stamina. With the danger of encountering a unknown foe and not expecting what type of attacks they can perform, the whole game puts the player on edge the whole time.
What I'm trying to get at here is that perhaps one of the reasons why hardcore games are so rare these days is because of how difficult they are to create and still make them fun (if not fair). Casual games are easier to create and attract which is probably why they are developed more than often now. I don't mind easier and casual games, but once in a while I like a challenge. I am finding that challenge in indie games and once in a while in retail games such as Ninja Gaiden Sigma. If any of you readers have any suggestions on "Good" hardcore games, I'm all ears.
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