i hate hard games :(

[Future Angel]

I hate hard video games, life is hard enough. video games should be just for fun. but all the "just for fun games" are like hello kitty, they need to make good games like star wars that are easy and play for story.

i like final fantasy 1-x because you can cheat to turn off randoms and make the game fun, but xbox and ps3 dont have any cheating programs.

and seems like newer games are getting hard again....its frustrating.

[DragonHeart]

o.O The newer games aren't harder than the old ones. In fact, most newer games have a "win the game" button, you just need to know where to look for it. In RPGs it's usually in the form of ultimate weapons, which as often as not also grant final abilities that are nearly, if not outright game breaking. Maybe instead of cheating, learn how to play the games the way they were intended to be played.

[Lacquer Head]

the challenge is where all the fun is...if you can't handle the difficulty of a simple RPG, you should probably stick to movies and television...may I recommend Nick Jr. <_<

[LocoColt04]

While it is true that the Japanese have finally stopped "dumbing down" the international releases of their games, leaving most of the bite in, they're still significantly easier than the majority of the games I played back in the 1980s. I'd say it has to be by a pretty fair margin too, because when I go back and play a lot of my old games, I feel a pretty fair difference in difficulty between those and the majority of games that are released now. Of course, I also never cheated in my RPGs - I remember using GameShark to do crazy stuff in all kinds of titles, like ultra jumping in Mario, but I guess it never occurred to me to use it for Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, Crystalis, etc.

[Xanatos]

Most games have several levels of difficulty to chose from, as for using cheats in Final Fantasy games, do kill yourself. Final Fantasy games are usually as easy as it gets, there's almost no challenge little bit of grinding can't solve.

[Heartless Angel]

Yeah, honestly games are getting easier overall, it's actually quite sad when I have to start something I've never played before at max difficulty to not be bored. Games are getting much too easy. Dark Souls and Demon Souls are the last games I really enjoyed as far as difficulty goes. Cheats are all well and good, but i never touch em until at least one complete legit play through a game. After that though, in goes the gameshark as I find new and interesting ways to break the game. For the lulz of course.

I can't say I've ever had any trouble in a Final Fantasy. On the rare occasion that I did, it was due to me being lazy and fleeing from everything for so long that I ended up way behind recommended level. Spend 15 minutes killing random encounters, and suddenly you're winning with minimal effort again. If you're not interested in actually playing the game and just want the story, you don't even need to throw money at the game, the cutscenes will all be on youtube within a couple months of a game's release.

[loaf]

Hard Star Wars game? Don't think that exists. But if you want an easy Star Wars game, go play Lego Star Wars.

[Lacquer Head]

It's funny, I've been trying to battle as little as possible in FF games, just to get a bit of a challenge, but the end bosses usually have some mega weakness to make it silly. The extreme challenges just aren't fun, because it's limiting game play severely to make it hard. Something like FF I with all white mages, it becomes and endurance test, how long you can endure battles taking much longer, with no real added difficulty, just boooooring. The gaming industry needs more battletoads. I would love to see a year of nothing but hard games released, like 90% of the target audience would just quit playing lol

[Mystyrion]

I disagree in saying that games are "easier", games are much more in number than they use to be. Which makes a lot of them being easier and a lot of games now days are target at an extremely young audience so they are made easy.
But we still have hard games. Dark Souls isn't exactly easy, nor is Catherine, especially on the harder difficulties.

I enjoy difficulty to a point, but I also enjoy being able to relax and have a good time. One of the various reasons I like multiplayer games so much.

[Heartless Angel]

There are a few types of difficulty, and hitting right area is a really incredible feat for a game. There's the usual 'difficulty' we see, which more directly translates to the "this takes forever, but it's really just 15 minutes of repeating a very simple process" difficulty, there's the 'Mother of god, what asshole programmed this shit? This is ridiculous, I'm going to throw this controller through my television. This isn't difficulty, this is bullshit." difficulty (usually seen in fighting game bosses that just spam the same overpowered, virtually unstoppable combos over and over again), and then there's that one in a million game that get's it just right, with the, "Well, this takes some planning and a reasonable skill level to execute properly, and any failures are due to a deficiency in the player, not the game being a douchebag." difficulty. We need more games with the last one.

[Lacquer Head]

I unliked that 2 times just so that I could like it 3 times. Games tend to associated lengthy boring shit and bad gameplay with acceptable difficulty. Final Fantasy has always been quite guilty of this.

[Xanatos]

The gaming industry needs more battletoads.

First of all I appreciate hard yet fun games as much as the next guy, Battletoads are however hard just for the sake of being hard. I for one don't want such games in video game industry, and by such games I mean "irritating, hard in a cheap way up to the point where you want and in most cases actually do smash your controller" games.

[Lacquer Head]

There would still be 0 drop in quality, but it might kill off these bigger companies.

[Xanatos]

There would still be 0 drop in quality, but it might kill off these bigger companies.

Do enlighten me, how exactly might hard games destroy bigger companies?

[Lacquer Head]

Lack of sales. A large portion of the earnings from videos games come from easy party games. If all games became exceedingly difficult, the casual market would crumble. Even more "hardcore" gamers would lose interest depending on the type of difficulty.

[Pete]

I don't really think that games today are too hard. Maybe if they are, try different strategies or yknow, just get better at them. Worst case scenario, just go and turn the difficulty down a notch, since almost all games have some kind of setting for that now.

I'd also have to say that many major titles aren't what you'd call party games.

[Xanatos]

Lack of sales. A large portion of the earnings from videos games come from easy party games. If all games became exceedingly difficult, the casual market would crumble. Even more "hardcore" gamers would lose interest depending on the type of difficulty.

That's all under assumption that only big ass companies make lackluster easy video games which by the way is not true, not even by a long shoot. You would also need to ignore the fact that at least 70% of games offer several levels of difficulty, unless you were referring to companies such as Zynga and PopCap all along which aim specific group of players to begin with.

[nix]

If you dont like the challenge, then watch a movie or read a book. Computer games by their definition should strive to provide difficulty and a learning curve, games are far too easy these days, what the fuck is the OP talking about? Seriously?

These years I MUST be playing multiplayer games and against good players to enjoy a game, its been like that a decade strong, single player games are what you want them to be, easy face roll interactive story lines, there is little difficulty in them, computers games are designed to offer little challenge anymore..

So yeah, lets all progress gaming by taking away from it even more

EDIT

Lack of sales. A large portion of the earnings from videos games come from easy party games. If all games became exceedingly difficult, the casual market would crumble. Even more "hardcore" gamers would lose interest depending on the type of difficulty.

Or these people who like gaming will just try harder, people have always been playing/buying games, decreasing the difficulty didnt boost sales, just like increasing it shouldn't..

[Lacquer Head]

That's all under assumption that only big ass companies make lackluster easy video games which by the way is not true, not even by a long shoot. You would also need to ignore the fact that at least 70% of games offer several levels of difficulty, unless you were referring to companies such as Zynga and PopCap all along which aim specific group of players to begin with.

So smaller companies will die too? I don't see your point here lol

EDIT



Or these people who like gaming will just try harder, people have always been playing/buying games, decreasing the difficulty didnt boost sales, just like increasing it shouldn't..

Game sales have increased over the years, all the money is in casual gaming. A lot of companies would suffer drastically without that market. But if games get shittier controls and gameplay, I'd hope a lot of people would quit buying them. If they got more difficult in a good way, hopefully some people would stick with it, but even then, there would be a drop. Decreasing wont hurt sales since it opens the market to more people, but making them more difficult closes off a lot.

I love how a smart ass quip has turned into an in depth discussion :1

[Kurt Zisa]

It all depends on skill or your willingness to improve. If you keep getting thrashed silly by a Boss then take the time to level up or rethink your strategy. Look it up on the internet or something, there's plenty of game specific wiki's out there that will provide you with some information on how to do things. Play Sims or Zoo Tycoon that way you'll have removed most of the issues you have with games.

If games have little to no challenge involved, then why bother spending the money or time on them. Just watch someone play through them on youtube.

[Xanatos]

So smaller companies will die too? I don't see your point here lol

Wut?

My point? It's simple, really. You claim only larger companies make lackluster easy games which is not true, 90% of indie games I played so far have been rather easy... 70% of games in general offer several levels of difficulty (funny enough almost every game made by a larger company such as Activision, Blizzard, Bioware, Capcom, EA, id, Konami...) ... with that we're back on my initial question, how exactly might hard games destroy larger companies?

[Lacquer Head]

No, I'm just pointing out that they do. Depending on the company, they can get away with it, if it's an independent company releasing cheap/free games. But if a company just releases games that a lot of people will be annoyed by, they will end up making no sales.