Posted on 09/20/2011 at 09:46 AM
| Filed Under Feature
I think we're in an usual time right now where we don't really understand how tough we should actually make a game. As stated, back on the NES, games were as tough as they were due to hardware constraints, plain bad design, or as a means of artificially extending the length of the game.
Today, it has become very easy to just give the player whatever they need to progress. If it's altering the difficulty of AI on the fly, providing more health or ammo, or just offering infinite retries - the game understands how to help you past where you're stuck. On face value, this is quite nice and can allow players to see the entire game, but on the other, it's done so subversively, you never know if you are taking on the game at the right difficulty level and being properly challenged. This is no good.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have games like Demon's Souls. That game is punishingly hard and built on the old school ideals of pure repetition to figure out the set of moves required to progress. Even after figuring out the intricate ballet, you're required to execute it perfectly in order to actually move forward. It's quite akin to something like the hell blocks in MM2. Clearly this design isn't going to engage most players.
If we consider Demon's Souls a reaction to the pathetically low difficulty of most games, it's clear that we need to at least shift slightly back to something a bit more challenging. Death should have consequences and games shouldn't pander to poor performance - they need to produce difficulties that players should have to work through. I think most games today would be much more memorable if they didn't handhold the player to the finish line.
Eventually game designers will figure out how to strike a better balance, but right now, I believe we're in a generation of completely forgettable games, primarily due to how devoid of challenge they are.