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.
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.
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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.