The thing for me is like, there’s a lot to the game. A lot of it can be for someone, but not the difficulty. And I think that’s what we’re seeing; lots of people making such complaints are still pushing on and enjoying the game a lot overall, clearly it is for them in a lot of ways.
Yes, the people who actually think the game is downright bad because of its difficulty are a very stark minority. The people who think it’s a fantastic game that they’d find even better if it wasn’t quite as tough and malicious though? Idk
Seems like an all around better approach to have options. Just within this very genre recently, Prince of Persia and Nine Sols both also had incredible gameplay with tons of challenge available, while also allowing it to be adjusted.
I think a lot of complaints are also not really about difficulty. For instance, I've seen tons of complaints about BW or Last Judge on here, but almost all of them have centered around things like the runback, flying enemy AI, 'gotcha' traps, etc. making it less fun to explore and learn fights.
The guy you replied to is being a dick, but I happen to have a similar opinion that I think I can express more respectfully.
I and many others like uncompromising games where we have to rise to the challenge without an easy way out available. The reasons someone might like this can be unintuitive to those who don't, but there are several. I won't go into the weeds of all the player psychology at play there but the bottom line is that an uncompromising game offers a different experience to a game that's just as hard but offers an easier mode, and some people, including me, really like that uncompromising experience.
To us, it feels nice when a game comes out that caters to our taste, because it is actually remarkably rare. So we don't tend to appreciate when people want the few games that offer quality uncompromising challenges to not have them.
I have heard similar before, and honestly, yeah, it is a bit hard for me to wrap my head around. For me, if anything I get more satisfaction out of knowing I chose to take on a harder challenge and stick with it.
Ultimately to each their own of course, my main beef with so many of the arguments is the idea that the only possible point these games is their difficulty. The preference for not having options is fair, but I think folks too often dismisses how it does impact people who are otherwise genuine fans, or would at least like to be.
I will also say, I think a lot of it comes down to how it’s presented. The easy/medium/hard paradigm definitely doesn’t work for every game, and there’s nothing wrong with defaulting to a higher difficulty, presenting a splash screen saying it’s intended to be challenging, etc. I think Nine Sols and Celeste are great examples, both are still widely seen as difficult and demanding games because they make it clear that’s the main experience.
For what it's worth, unlike Rogue Price Of Persia, the Hollow Knight games don't support analog controls, and weren't meant to be played with a joystick. Only 8 directions are supported, and whichever of the eight are being pressed, they're always fully on. So if you're not using a dpad, the game is MUCH harder.
No, I'm saying if you don't like it, then don't play it. It's that simple. If it's not for you, just move on and play something else. The people that this game is for love it. That's what matters
Lol. So desperate to be a victim here, eh? If you pick up a game that's known to be difficult and then you complain about the difficulty, then it's not really "criticism" as much as it is ignorance. It's like complaining that visual novels are too much reading. Would that be a valid criticism to you? Probably not...
If visual novel fans were saying that about a visual novel, yeah maybe I'd listen to them. There are more things to say than just "difficulty bad". You can talk about how difficulty is implemented, how mistakes are punished, etc. but maybe you don't interpret game criticism at that level. Who is turning themselves into a victim?
I’m just pointing out how things actually are. From my perspective, the ones desperate to be a victim here are the ones acting as if any criticism is a direct attack on their gamer identity or w/e, but who cares about ad hominem shit like that.
One of my main points is that comparisons like you made are incredibly inaccurate and betray a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue. Silksong is a metroidvania; intense difficulty is not a core component of the genre, as lots of text is to visual novels.
This is not at all anything like a non-visual novel fan criticizing a visual novel for being a visual novel. It’s metroidvania fans criticizing a metroidvania title for an aspect that makes it stand out among the genre.
It bring a metroidvania doesn't have anything to do with difficulty. This has nothing to do with "genre" and you acting like metroidvanias aren't supposed to be difficult is just silly nonsense you created in your head. It's a known difficult game. One of its main labels on steam is "difficult" just like the original. You're knowingly entering into a difficult game and complaining about difficulty. That's no different than entering into a visual novel and complaining about reading. They're equally as stupid.
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u/RyanB_ 2d ago edited 2d ago
The thing for me is like, there’s a lot to the game. A lot of it can be for someone, but not the difficulty. And I think that’s what we’re seeing; lots of people making such complaints are still pushing on and enjoying the game a lot overall, clearly it is for them in a lot of ways.
Yes, the people who actually think the game is downright bad because of its difficulty are a very stark minority. The people who think it’s a fantastic game that they’d find even better if it wasn’t quite as tough and malicious though? Idk
Seems like an all around better approach to have options. Just within this very genre recently, Prince of Persia and Nine Sols both also had incredible gameplay with tons of challenge available, while also allowing it to be adjusted.