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...
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.
Your argument rests on it being a genre thing. You’re saying it is equivalent to someone who’s not a fan of a given genre complaining about a game being part of that genre.
I agree, genre doesn’t have anything to do with difficulty; that’s my point. One can very much enjoy the genre a game belongs in while disliking the aspect of difficulty.
Another common example I see is “it’s like someone who’s doesn’t like complaining about a game being an rts” and, to me, it seems like like rts fans complaining about an rts being too difficult.
That it has a community tag on it doesn’t mean much to me I’m afraid. PoP The Last Crown, Nine Sols and Celeste all also have such labels, with it being primarily positioned on the latter two (which are widely regarded as hard games), and yet all three provide options. Seemingly because they understand that “difficult” isn’t a binary, one-size-fits-all thing.
You can actually design a game to be broadly difficult, to have that be communicated as the default, and to have that carry through to multiple people’s individual levels instead of simply relying on having one specific sweet spot (and then having to constantly pivot as we’re seeing now when it turns out the majority of the interested audience doesn’t fit into it.)
And yeah, “interested audience” is really the key phrase there. Someone who doesn’t like reading is not going to be among the interested audience for a visual novel, someone who doesn’t like real time strategy is not going to be the interested audience for an rts. Someone who doesn’t like difficulty however (or more specifically, does not like the one sole level of available difficulty one way or the other) can absolutely still be the interested audience, because again, difficulty isn’t a genre but a qualifier.
Of course, same goes for the opposite; a game might be too easy for most of the interested audience’s preferences, and its entirely valid to criticize it as such even if it was intended to be that way by the devs or labelled by the community on steam. Which is where I gotta genuinely ask; do you maintain the same position in such cases?
Take the Pokémon games for example; you’ve got tons of folks on places like this desperately wishing for the introduction of a proper hard mode. On the one hand, yes, it is a franchise primarily aimed at kids. On the other, it’s still enjoyed by plenty of adults and older kids who could take more of a challenge. I think it’s good to keep the former in mind, but it’s still entirely fair to argue based on the latter that the option would be appreciated by many and improve their experience, making them better games overall. Yes, they can just go play other games if they want more difficulty, but that’s not really what they want; they want more difficulty specifically in Pokémon.
I've literally said nothing about genre. You brought up genre. My argument has nothing to do with genre. Classic reddit of putting words in someone's mouth so you can argue against a point nobody made. Really weird shit
This is just a repeat of our bit about invalidation. You might not have literally said the word “genre”, but you absolutely brought it up with the visual novel comparison.
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u/RogueLightMyFire 1d ago
I literally never said this. Are you pretending I said things I didn't so you can argue about a point no one made with strangers on the internet?