Difficulty MATTERS In Video Games! How Easy Mode Shifts Game Design

[@relo999]

I think the issue with difficulty is far more fundamental within videogames. First and foremost since around the early to mid 80's the vast majority of "games" aren't meant to be replayed, simply consumed. This has had the knock-on effect that players don't need to understand the fundamental skills needed to get good at a videogame, simply good enough to pass and this has been translated into difficulty settings. But I hear you thinking, "but... arcades games!". They suffered from the issue that their difficulty setting was more so a switch (or set of switches) for the machine operator to set to determine how quickly the player gets thrown from the machine and needs to input more money, and this has been grandfathered in a lot of arcade games. And by the time it became common to make arcade-esq games for home use the way difficulty was implemented on both arcade and home games was well established. (and the whole idea of videogames as consumable products also translates into stuff like coin feeding and other such things in arcade games) Having made both videogames and boardgames I can say that boardgames, which nearly all are expected to be replayed, difficulty is wildly different implemented in boardgames that do have it. Rather than simply making numbers lower it tends to be a stripped down version of the game that still teaches and requires the fundamental skills required to play the game with any success, or it takes the form of a far more manageable very similar separate game that still teaches and requires the fundamental skills. "Difficulty settings" in boardgames are generally speaking more a form of tutorialization that goes beyond simply "these are the actions you can do" level of tutorialization you see in videogames. Having difficulty in the form of "just less or more stuff/numbers/speed" is only useful if you have a game that's intended to be consumed as that simply lowers the skill requirements to consume the content. But for a game that requests mastery to play at even decent level this simply doesn't work, than a system is needed that still requires and teaches the same fundamental skills as the full game. Or to translate it to another thing outside gaming al together, you don't increase or decrease the difficulty of learning and speaking a foreign language by having scrolling text go faster or slower but you change the difficulty by increasing or decreasing the complexity of the words and texts. You don't start out by reading the Illuminatus Trilogy slowly and trying to speed up your reading when you first start learning English (and for any English natives, replace illuminatus trilogy with War and Peace and English with Russian).

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I pinned your comment because it s really fascinating how the world of board game design works. At some point it would be cool to learn more about them (beyond chess of course). Like one board game that fascinates me is risk, but I've only played it a few times at some odd parties in college. The game seems to go on for hours and hours ha

[@HighLanderPonyYT]

Twilight Imperium 4th edition. Takes long but is really fun. Lol

[@lunaria_stg]

The board game analogy is really good. Board games also have expansions that add new mechanics and rules, making it more complex. So, for a new player, we usually play the base game first to give them an understanding of the core gameplay loop, before adding in expansions. To translate this into shmup game design, why not adopt Batrider's system, where there is a truncated normal course and the advanced course being the full game? The difficulty curve isn't linear, with later stages being MUCH harder than earlier stages, so that's where most of the time is spent practicing. Furthermore, when trying to optimise resources for later stages, that is when a player has to go back to earlier stages and practice more difficult strategies to save resources. In other words, we could say that 70-90% of the difficulty of a shmup lies within the last 1-2 stages. Once you realise this, it becomes very obvious that there is another way to go about making an easy mode: simply chop out the last few stages like Batrider! Now a player can reach a clear much more easily, without compromising the game design and balance. Then, when the player wants to move up to the next difficulty, what they have learnt in easy mode is still useful and applicable. Sure, they would most likely have to refine their routes, but at least they have a working framework to start with, giving them a softer launch pad when jumping into the full game. This also saves on dev time, since they don't have to tune the difficulty so many times, making this a win-win situation IMO. Batrider also demonstrates another way to add difficulty: meet certain requirements to access secret bosses. We can also extend this to have secret, more difficult stages that can only be accessed by doing stuff like "no miss stage 3". Like normal vs advanced course, this is another modular approach to difficulty, and arguably a better one as it doesn't seem like the dev is intentionally holding back content in the easy mode. In contrast, the Touhou style of difficulty modes and CAVE/CCWE novice modes never appealed to me that well. Sure, it's better than M2's super easy modes, but not by much. I always feel like I'm running into a wall every time I go to the next difficulty level, because none of your strategies can be carried over. Everything, from the very beginning of the game to the end, is changed completely, so you're pretty much playing a totally different game. And it feels discouraging to have to start all the way from zero every time, which I feel is another obstacle for new players. It gives new players this knee-jerk reaction that they're not cut out for shmups. To compound on this, since we put so much weight on the arcade modes and clearing them, novice/easy modes or playing the game without trying for 1cc's feel fake in comparison. So in combination, this is what new players think: "Arcade mode is too hard" -> "Arcade mode is the real game" -> "Because I can't beat arcade mode, I'm not a real shmup player" -> "I can't play shmups". And then they quit the genre because they don't feel like they belong. And to be clear, I'm talking purely about what the player feels, regardless of the player's actual skill level or potential. They can derive the above just from their first impressions with arcade mode, before they even start routing out stage 1 or 2. Psychologically speaking, the barrier to entry into the shmup genre for real (i.e. not dropping out after 3-4 months like what Mark observed) is really high even now, and it would do us a lot of good to rethink our approach to accessible difficulty levels. While the conventional approach may be successful at drawing more people into the genre, it doesn't seem to retain players well.

[@relo999]

@@sonicdv3953 Most certainly, that's the main thing I meant. The big issue with a lot of videogame difficulty settings, especially easy modes, is that don't teach the player well how to play the game at higher levels of play. Simply "less" of the default/arcade/hard/etc. setting can certainly teach the game but it requires a lot of dedication of the player as that's a poor way of teaching the game. It's a far better way to make a handcrafted setting to forces players to still learn fundamental skills but at a lower intensity or with lower stakes. To translate that to shmups I'd imagine the lowest difficulty setting being singular patterns with relatively low intesity. Medium mixing patterns at the previous intesity and arcade/hard/etc. mode increasing the density of patterns. And you're right in that the jump between levels can be too daunting in some games for players. Personally my solution from the top of my head to it, in shmups, would be forcing players to play on the easiest difficulty and once they get good enough results let them open higher a higher difficulty (possibly with some new content) all while telling the player "if you get to this skill level you unlock more". This both signals to the player "this game needs to be replayed" and when done properly drops them into a new level of difficulty that they should be good enough to handle. Personally I'm a big believer in that difficulty levels in any sort of game should be a method to teach the full game to players, a stepping stone for players to get to the full game; not simply a way to get through content easier.

[@relo999]

@@TheElectricUnderground Risk is good fun, but can drag on far to long especially when some player already lost ages ago. You should look into designer boardgames like Catan, Wingspan, Ticket to Ride, stone age they're great ways to get into the world of boardgames. And all also do great jobs at teaching the game to players the never really touched a boardgame beyond Monopoly or Snakes and Ladders.

[@BknMoonStudios]

The more I think about it, the more I agree with Relo's pinned comment. Whenever we find something "difficult", it's rarely because of the execution or reaction speed required. Almost always it comes down to not *_understanding_* how something works. As someone who plays many fighting games and has introduced a couple of friends to the genre, two of the highest "walls" beginners encounter are actually: 1) holding back to block; 2) understanding how blocking low and high are different. I met many beginners who are actually really good at performing fireballs and DPs consistently, yet they get blown up in the corner because they only hold down-back and never block overheads. To use another example, most people who have played and finished a Souls game will tell you that the games get waaaaaaay easier after your first playthrough. It's not because the game itself changed, but rather because the player *_understands_* it better. As weird as it sounds, you can actually make a game "easier" without lowering the challenge. Just introduce a handful of intuitive, easy-to-execute mechanics and gradually ask the player to play more "polished". SHMUPs could make use of this by "segmenting" the skills that are required to beat each difficulty. Easy Mode could be built to test the players movement, positioning and pattern recognition, while leaving more advanced concepts like streaming, micro/macro dodging and aggressive play for Normal Mode and higher. You can still make a "simple" game be very challenging. (Old-school arcade SHMUPs are a great source of inspiration for this.) If developers want to go absolutely crazy with this, maybe instead of thinking about these Modes as "Difficulties", developers can treat them as "Styles". Change "Easy Mode" to a "Retro/Toaplan Mode", then "Normal Mode" to "Tohuou Mode", and "Hard Mode" to a "CAVE/Psikyo Mode". Each one requires more knowledge of the mechanics and precision, without any of them being actually "Easy". Sorry for the text wall. Just wanted to share my thoughts on this. 😎👍

[@TheElectricUnderground]

yeah that's right, and people often think (incorrectly) that there is nothing to understand about the genre, that its just pure reflexes ha.

[@Golipillas]

Top tier comment, you have some great insights on game design

[@ownageDan]

shmups dont need easy modes, as much as they need proper training options (stage select!!!, boss select) to practice before stringing it all together in a 1cc, something that is missing from alot of games, especially arcade ports. if i wanna practice a part im having trouble with, i dont wanna have to play everything i already mastered everytime. savestates on mame are great for this, but every shmup should have it.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I think a proper easy mode is a nice addition, but completely agree that a strong training mode is much more important! Especially since you can often build yourself an easy mode with training mode

[@AyeYoYoYooo]

If you want the genre to survive, and KINDERGARTNERS & EARLY GRADE SCHOOLERS to play shmups, easy modes are essential my dude.

[@Epicasfuk]

I love how this channel has voiced a ton of what us 90's / 80's kid gamers feel about the modern shit storm upon us and all the topics like this voice the real deal opinions of many of us out here to the game devs these days.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

That is a goal of the channel, because normally the more hardcore player perspective (or whatever the term) gets completely drowned out by the general audience. And then as more niche channels become more mainstream their opinions starts to be more digestible as well. So we do have a real uniformity occuring

[@FFTHundoCommunity]

I think this mentality of how difficult a game should be depends on what kind of gamer you are. As a fan of arcade games, I tend to appreciate overcoming challenges by utilizing all of the tools at my disposal. I like being forced to learn mechanics and boss patterns to succeed. For example, getting the 1CC for Radiant Silvergun requires understanding chaining and leveling weapons. A player that credit feeds has no need to learn anything. As a result, they might "beat" the game and not see the appeal. They might see it as similar to any other shmup. This is why I've been moving away from RPGs, because grinding tends to circumvent the need to learn the mechanics, or even use most of the tools a player is provided. Open world games are even worse, since without level scaling it's impossible to provide a consistent challenge for every player because you cannot predict how every player will play the game. For most fans of cinematic games like Uncharted, God of War, Last of Us, and Horizon, the story is primary draw and the gameplay is the obstacle getting in the way of their enjoyment of the narrative. This is why these games have very easy modes. People that grew up with RPGs or visual novels are the audience that will probably avoid shmups more than most, and ironically they are the only audience that would appreciate "super easy" mode. Still, I can't fault the inclusion of super easy mode for the same reason why I can't fault the "skip cutscene" button in something like Star Ocean or Final Fantasy. Yeah, you're ignoring the draw of the game, but by ignoring the aspects you don't like you can enjoy the elements that appeal to you. Though if the difficulty doesn't appeal to you, I'm not sure why you'd touch a shmup in the first place; then again, Touhou has a rabid fanbase of people that never played the games and only care about the characters and music.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Oh I like the point you bring up on narrative focused games, because yeah for these games it s like the gameplay is more of an inconvenience than the main draw. The only gaming stories I really got into were StarCraft and metal gear. But I don't actually consume the stories in the games themselves, I watch it in clip complications on KZbin. It would be interesting to see how narrative players would respond to modes where there is no gameplay and the game autoplays itself. It sounds silly to us, but I wouldn't be surprised if this didn't catch on to some degree.

[@RuV9999]

"A player that credit feeds has no need to learn anything. As a result, they might "beat" the game and not see the appeal" this is what i don't like about credit feature in shmup. also i think this might be the reason why people don't find shmup games appealing than any hard difficulty games like Dark soul/cuphead/etc because they're like (if you died, you died) and that makes the appeal in level and game design. they forced to learn the game.

[@lancevance6413]

Often it feels to me like a game will be built for a specific audience and then desperately try to include people outside of that audience, usually to the detriment of the original target. You see this in fighting games all the time. It's fine I guess but if you are doing something that doesn't serve the type of player you are targeting, it's at best a waste of time and at worst, harming your intended audience.

[@magicjohnson3121]

Remember when people thought New Super Mario Bros Wii was going to auto play itself and they were worried? They would probably welcome it these days

[@bulldogmicro4279]

​@@lancevance6413 dang your point hits 2 times harder when I think of GGstrive they murdered that game by making it baby mode easy. More fighting games need access for noobs, but it also stings. I grinded my way from zero to decent and the struggle is too much for most of these zoomers' mindsets. The hours I spend to just learn a bloody quarter circle motion lol.

[@boghogSTG]

Yea I agree, I even remember thinking this when I was a newbie getting into the genre properly, since novice modes started becoming a thing back then. I actually thought this about Crimzon Clover's novice original mode ironically, because going from 1cc'ing that to arcade original was a massive kick in the balls. Like you said, the more you lower the difficulty the more unfocused the game becomes. As a result it can really harm the moment-to-moment experience of playing the game. It's pretty tricky from a game design perspective. For example, designing smooth feeling stages often relies on getting players to move around to specific parts of the screen, and to prioritize specific enemies through challenge. If that challenge isn't there, players won't necessarily pick up on the intended flow, and just float through the stage. I think shmups should just keep high moment-to-moment difficulty, but have challenging checkpoints. That way players will get a taste of the "real" experience, but won't feel too frustrated since they'll always be advancing instead of being forced to restart. They can go for 1cc's after that....or not. A ton of extends also help, especially in games that don't let you bomb spam bosses.

[@DynoStorm]

Agreed. Gunvein did this perfectly, Mild Mode feels bullet hell and Continues have small bit of back tracking so it doesn't feel like a "cheat" or that part of the challenge was skipped. Excellent game design. ^^

[@boghogSTG]

@@DynoStorm Hell yea, real happy to hear that! I based it on Megaman's continue system pretty much, since those games are very fun even if you're continuing. It's not perfect (stage 3 and 5 bosses are significantly harder than the rest of the game) but yeah, hope more shmups do that sorta thing

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Absolutely bog! Checkpoints are under used for new players. Another alternative could be a dynamic boost mode (like ccwe) where the game tries to challenge the player on the fly and then push the player into real tastes of arcade difficulty

[@HighLanderPonyYT]

Which shmup did you guys make? Or Hog at least? I forgot. :x

[@boghogSTG]

@@HighLanderPonyYT Gunvein mainly, also working on Mechanical Star Astra and prob something else soon

[@blown3312]

I replied to the super easy mode comment on the DOJ video, I didn't realize a lot of others did as well. I'm 43 years old and just got into Shumps about 2 years ago when I bought a Saturn. I now have an amazing collection across all consoles. Anyway, as a kid, Tiger Heli on NES was one of my favorites, but I needed game genie to loop it. I also loved River Raid and Chopper Command on Atari 2600. Then I got Twin Cobra on Genesis and Super R Type on SNES. Both way too hard for me so I exited the genre for 30 years. I didn't have a lot of opportunity to get ton of new games and I felt like I burnt 2 chances already. I've been playing like crazy for the last 2 years and I still need super easy mode or I credit feed. Those 2 options are the only reason I'm back. I had to unlock free play to complete Garegga and Ketsui on Arcade mode. I'd rather 1cc super easy than die literally 50 times on arcade. Also had to unlock free play on Ikaruga to compete that one, which takes 7 hours of play. I wish Treasure had super easy. I'm not sure I can ever complete Gradius V, which I think is amazing. Same with Radiant Silvergun. I used to hate Ikaruga but now with free play, I absolutely love it. I also can basically not play any shmup with a check point system, way too hard. I'm completely stuck on Gun Frontier Truxton and Grind Stormer. I would definitely buy those for Super Easy since the auto bomb basically negates the check point system. I absolutely love Twin Cobra super easy mode with auto bomb. It went from a game that I've owned for 30 years that I can't even play, to one of my favorites. I love Same! Same! Same! too, only because of auto bomb.

[@conoraq]

Back when Dragon Age 2 came out almost 12 years ago, an EA producer gave an interview where he said "our philosophy for the game is that every time you push a button, something awesome has to happen". That is the attitude and set of expectations you're fighting against by trying to explain why challenge and rewards for skillful play are good things. People expect to be spoonfed a game's content like babies, and they will kick and scream when someone makes them feel like that's a bad thing.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah a similar moment for me was the first time I played xrd and saw you could turn on auto combos ... No one talks about it but that design decision still haunts me.

[@squirrelsyrup1921]

Button, awesome! Button, awesome!

[@johnhammond7579]

I don't recall that being the case with Dragon Age 2. I did play it on the hardest difficulty though, so it involved a lot of restarts more than anything else. Does pressing Escape and seeing the Load option count as an awesome thing?

[@danielbetancourt1483]

​@@johnhammond7579Notice how the original commenter didn't even have to play the game, just here the devs marketing speak and declared it the end of gaming

[@jw6588]

Awesome! Very happy to see you take this topic head on like a boss hoss. And I think you came to the right place with the argument, too. In that one instance, you made your point with an imprecise sentence: "Nobody cares about Super Easy Modes." And you rightfully got hammered for it. But this video should satisfy literally any reasonable person (good luck though, it's the internet after all). But maybe also keep in mind that your audience isn't 100% those people who share your goals. Sometimes the audience just likes to watch an expert practice his craft; it doesn't mean they want to emulate him. But I think with the formulation: "If you have the goal of developing proficiency in the genre, Super Easy Modes shouldn't matter much to you.", or something like, then you're golden.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah lol sometimes my usual day to day smack talk doesn't translate over to the internet super well. I do hope the end of the video helped make it clear that from the perspective of players looking to enter the arcade experience, the super easy mode is not going to be helpful. But if you re not interested in playing at arcade difficulty, my critique of them probably won't apply to your experience

[@jw6588]

@@TheElectricUnderground Yeah. I mean, to be honest, all of this should go without saying, and even regarding the comments I posted, it was all in good fun. I wasn't upset or anything, just laying out a different point of view. Smack talk has its place, and that place is the Internet if it's anywhere. It's kinda sad that it seems like some people on the internet float about looking for reasons to get butt hurt. I like your channel as it is, and I wouldn't expect you to bow down to anybody just because of stupid comments section blowback.

[@osakanone]

I think the right answer here is to apply a principle called Fitt's law, which is that in situations requiring decision making, and the use of one's hands and eyes, speed and precision are both in direct competition with one another. In this case, new players aren't going to be incapable of making good decisions, but they will take much longer to make them and perform them than older players. The result then, I think would be a means which permits players to toggle their score multipliers in exchange for a slightly slower gamespeed or to have an option which is only updating frames during actual movement like Superhot. This was the decision that Tetris Effect went with in its Zone mechanic, and it worked fantastically for onboarding total novices into the game design by adding a buffer to the panic/engagement collapse of newer players and for advanced players it permitted special meta-strategies with certain score bonuses at the end of the Zone, by ensuring no blocks disappeared until the Zone was finished -- thusly, that more than 4-line clears became possible (with VERY advanced players stacking the line-clears all the way to the ceiling in a Perfectris) The result is Tetris Effect is now treated as an onboarding tool for all varieties of Tetris, including NES tetris which had very different rules simply because its a good way to learn the main skill of optimized stacking (much as in shmups, the main skill is evasion).

[@100hundert]

You always have such well thought out arguments! Sadly, especially when discussing the topic of difficulty in games, very often all nuance is lost, when - just as you said! - difficulty is all about nuance and balance. When games become too easy, they don't force me to improve, since I'm just coasting through the content without actually learning and applying something new. But that's what I always loved about demanding, technical games like shmups, character action or Tetris - I'm not only having a great time the second I start playing, but there's also always something new to learn, some new finesse to add to my skill, some new moves to my arsenal, and some more habits to include in my muscle memory.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah difficulty is so challenging to balance just right, it is a feat of engineering more so than philosophy. Even with play testing it s really hard to know how a game will hold up under a wide audience or over a long time period

[@energyzer_bunny1913]

Honestly, this applies to ANYTHING in life. Not just SHMUPS.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Absolutely! General principals cross over to many areas of life :-)

[@esperago]

Kinda but shmups are a form of entertainment, which by default is non essential and by default, they should be entertaining. If a game is so difficult that it's not entertaining, then the difficulty needs to be adjusted or at that option should be offered, at least.

[@lunaria_stg]

@@esperago Yes. Problem is super easy mode is so easy that they're not entertaining either. I agree that we need accessible easy modes, but this isn't the right solution.

[@esperago]

@@lunaria_stg We're in agreement. My hang up is that it seems like the Electric Underground guy picked a very particular, fairly niche scenario as a smokescreen to bag on SHMUPS having easy modes, period. It's no secret that he has no time for easy games and that his ultimate position is "if you are struggling, just get better." So it just seems like he's sneaking in "extra, ultra, super, poorly planned easy modes have no place in games" as a way to make easy-mode supporters wrong (just a little bit). His argument is silly in this video. Nobody on earth enjoys or appreciates when a game is sloppily programed and improperly implementing easy modes is just one of many possible examples of sloppy programming. EU's beef in this video is really about sloppy game development, not easy modes... except it isn't... He's not stupid. His beef is actually about easy modes and he'll use any sneaky approach he can get to make himself right and those who oppose, wrong

[@energyzer_bunny1913]

@@lunaria_stg Super Easy modes are only good for 5 year olds or anyone starting to play video games. My first game was Iridion 3D and I played that when I was 5.

[@AbcDefg-zt8xy]

Wonderful response. I like how you mentioned that too little difficulty ruins the design but too much difficulty also ruins the design. I remember one level in Oni (2000) was so hard on the last difficulty that I found out how to cheese the AI in a fight, which I proceeded to do for the rest of the game instead of learning it's fighting system better. If the game wasn't that hard - I would be improving my skill instead.

[@danbo2401]

i don't like the "watering down" metaphor since often a lot of elements can water down a game. i prefer to simply say difficulty is the means by which the player is compelled to engage with mechanics (which is what you're saying anyway) -- the player would have no need to care about bombs if every attack was trivial to dodge however, it is not really the only way to do this. scoring is another way to compel a player to engage with mechanics -- and it is done in both a rewarding (get the 5-chips for more multiplier) and punishing (if you die instead of bombing, your stage-end bonus gets smaller) manner. yet, the average player doesn't really care about scoring past perhaps extends -- leaderboard placement is not really very important for the average player, especially a rookie however, we can casually observe that players can easily be made to care about illusory numbers -- playing a modern popular game often involves earning and managing 100 different currencies, and players generally enjoy optimising this process. hook this up to a very rich scoring system and we no longer have to rely so much on difficulty. what do they spend their ScoreBux on? it could literally be anything. they could be building and upgrading a little doll house, i earnestly believe this -- it seems like a gimme to tie these bux to some sort of ship upgrade system, but i think it's stale thinking, and i would avoid this as much as possible. good STG is balanced on a knife's edge, and is incompatible with conventional upgrade systems. this is how i would do an easy mode that is still interesting, and probably has a quite broad appeal. double down on scoring, reign it back on "game over" style difficulty. a purist's "hard mode" must still exist because the 23-minute mountain climb 1cc is a beautiful thing and is very core to STG. thats what i think anyway

[@boghogSTG]

What does scoring mean in the context of unlocks, though? Because you can go two routes - either focus on the skill based aspect of scoring (for example forcing players to get pb's to keep getting bux due to diminishing returns), or allow grinding. If it's the former, then all you've done is slightly shuffled things around - the exact same problems in the vid will still exist. You'll still have a kind of intended playstyle that you want players to fall into, and you'll have to figure out some ways of getting them there without frustrating & confusing them. Scoring is only a soft incentive if it's not the main goal of the game after all. I suppose you *could* allow grinding, and just make it very time consuming compared to getting good as a type of "pressure release valve", but I think all this can apply equally to survival.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I tried to come up with as many relevant analogies I could think of, but yeah I don't think any of them fully capture the concept. Still, you must award me bonus points for not mentioning dark souls, not even once. How to go about an interesting easy mode is a fascinating topic, and I am super open to the idea. One idea that I had (that's sort of in blue revolver actually) is rather than having an "easy mode" have a dynamic rank mode (basically default mode from blue revolver). That's one reason why I recommend blue revolver to new players, because the dynamic rank is a great tool to challenge them more individually. So in a sense (and i'm not just sucking up) I think blue revolver has resolved this issue to some degree. It's games without really dynamic rank systems that are just gonna have that wall from hell from new players though lol.

[@danbo2401]

@@boghogSTG consistent and repeated improvement at scoring would optimise a fairly long and grindy process, probably with milestone-type boosts for pushing PBs, special challenges, things like that -- players love optimising these types of progression systems, and it is my proposal that they'll do anything to optimise such progression -- including getting good at STG yes, it could apply equally to survival, but i think focusing on scoring would give more knobs to tweak, which means more ways for players to try to improve. i'm imagining a caravan sort of experience -- you'll definitely make it to the end of the course, but what matters is how many points you have at the end.

[@boghogSTG]

@@danbo2401 Right, though I think that pretty much requires a fundamental reworking of the genre's usual structure, and that hits on the bigger issue. Players love optimizing digits, but only in short bursts IMO. They also love challenge, but only in short bursts. I would be shocked if you could make unlocks good enough to get more than a tiny handful of people to optimize a 2 loop game. On the other hand bite sized levels like what Neon White does? People would eat that shit up, maybe even without an emphasis on scoring.

[@danbo2401]

@@TheElectricUnderground people should talk about finnegans wake instead of dark souls -- i'm no book-reader, but it's one of the hardest works of fiction in the western canon, full of made-up language and non-linear, dreamlike narrative structure -- both of which are absolutely instrumental to what the book is. hg wells said of the book, "you have turned your back on common men, on their elementary needs and their restricted time and intelligence [...] I ask: who the hell is this Joyce who demands so many waking hours of the few thousands I have still to live for a proper appreciation of his quirks and fancies and flashes of rendering?" -- which should feel oddly familiar in wording, and reveal that this is part of a discussion that's been going on for a very long time i would like to explore more player feedback wrt rank systems, i think it may be the missing link -- what the game looked and sounded different once a high rank level has been acquired and held? it could feel like summoning an ancient demon, or awakening the player's latent psychic newtype power... their magic helicopter could start straining under the insane pressure of the Gs they're pulling

[@evanseifert8858]

I love to hear a knowledgeable and calm discussion on this. It's true about difficulty bringing clarity to a game's design. I feel like it takes a level of maturity to appreciate games that genuinely focus on decisions and consequences.

[@benevans7564]

Part of the problem is that we're taking an arcade sensibility and applying it to a home experience. Maybe we need to be looking more at games like streets of rage 4 and building something that have a smooth curve intended for a home experience.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah that is absolutely part of the issue, arcade games have a much sharper spike by their nature. I agree with console designed shmups being a good gateway into the genre, hence why touhou is such a strong entry point for newcomers that does get people to stick around

[@benevans7564]

@@TheElectricUnderground if only somone would do a video on the notorious tohou vs arcade shmup divide...

[@perlichtman1562]

I came back to watch this again after your video about “too old to play shmups” being a false limiting belief today. I’ll try to keep my response brief because last time I ended up turning my comments into the start of a video script instead after I got to the 7th paragraph. ;) First, here’s what I personally do with an M2 port like Ketsui Deathtiny: - Run Super Easy Mode once with to default ship and soundtrack to see if I like the presentation enough to keep playing. - Possibly run Super Easy mode again with other ship or soundtrack. - Go to Premium/Fever/Deathtiny mode and keep running different combination of ship/weapon options and soundtracks until I know what I like best and get the credit limit up to 9. - Run Arcade mode once or twice to see how far I can get on 9 credits with my favorite combination of sound and ship/weapons options. - Start using training options to get better at the game (like the Arcade Challenge and Bonds in Ketsui). For me, the Super Easy Mode is what I use to most quickly figure out if the game is a good fit for me at that point in time. It’s how I figured out that I’d rather drill Ketsui Deathtiny a bunch before I came back to Battle Garega 2016 because I could more easily choose a favorite setup before I began drilling a bunch. With BG2016 I’d have to dedicate a day just to really getting a feel for the 32 different ships to decide which one I want to drill with - but playing Super Easy Mode made it clear that this was a game world that I would enjoy spending a lot of time in when the time came. And to be clear, I did spend several hours on BG2016 enjoying myself the day I got it and plan to spend many more in the future. But being able to quickly and experience most of the presentation side right off the bat makes the game feel very inviting and makes it much easier for me to get invested in getting better at for me. I’ll save a lot of my other thoughts for later, except to say that as certified USA Powerlifting coach and state level medalist, I agree with a lot of what you said in your other video about specificity and false ideas about the importance of age. From my experience training for a marathon with the Pasadena Pacers, I can tell you that you’re drastically overestimating most people’s ability to walk for long distances without training - and under-estimating the role of walking in proper marathon training. :)

[@perlichtman1562]

Also, small detail but the specifics are important in training so… - A 23 miles is not the length of a marathon. - 13.1 miles is a half-marathon, so that’s the only x3 number I could see getting mixed in there. - A marathon is 26.2 miles.

[@RichZuHaus]

You always have insightful comments. I never thought I would enjoy listening to someone talk about shmups....I have always loved shooters since the old days of the arcade, but I just played them. You have helped me see a whole new side of it.

[@Ace_of_DiscaL]

You are my new favourite Gamer now, myself being an avid RPG player with deep love for SHMUPS!

[@LowKeyDee1620]

I only play on easy mode since I got married and had kids. Life too stressful so I don’t have time to die 50 times in a game like when I was younger

[@weebnerdgaming4908]

Since I'm a kind of guy that appreciates things as they are, I don't think that much of Super Easy being... too easy. Heck, at times I had a blast with Super Easy mode as a revenge fantasy, lol! It gives exactly what it says. Notably Fire Shark's. Ultimately, Super Easy mode is kept because people do play them. The thing is, the interests between developers / publishers and players can be really conflicting at times. Data can show there is a market for super easy modes, yet the addition of such a mode while the original, intended difficulty isn't being affected may give a risk of bad publicity from some vocal minorities. Some developers just brush off the criticisms and add the novice mode anyway, or take the harder, craftier route by making a much easier arrange mode. Same intention, different branding. Ultimately, whenever newcomers want to stick with the genre or not is up to them. Who knows, maybe a baby that has enjoyed the thrills of super easy mode will become a total shmup junkie for arcade difficulties much later in life.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I'm sure super easy has some popularity (i've sort of have been made aware of that after my comment smack talking it ha), but I also think there is an opportunity cost, which is the hardest thing to try and convey in a review. Where yes super easy mode has this very limited function as a very very introductory experience, but if they actually beefed it up more I think it would be more popular and useful among the general players. So sometimes it can be very productive to not just appreciate what is there, but also where the potential of a game or release could go (that is realistic, of course).

[@crieflin]

I feel the problem is twofold. First, shmups lack in teaching good gameplay. Even with a "training mode" this means getting your butt kicked in a single stage instead of the whole game... No instruction, no tutorial! Second, there is an offensive lack of sufficient difficulty levels. Games often go from way.too easy to very difficult with nothing in between. To use Mark's marathon analogy, you wouldn't have someone learn how to run a quarter mile and then immediately tell them the next challenge is to run a full marathon. There has to be steps in between for people to continue to stay engaged and progress.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah the stage spike problem is an issue. It has an important role in arcade design, but it s brutal for new players. This is why I steer new players towards touhou, touhou really is the perfect storm for learning the genre with the tools that you need

[@crieflin]

@@TheElectricUnderground By the way, I really appreciate your content! I started playing shmups a year ago and went from owning none to about 25. It's been a great journey and I've learned a lot from all of your videos. Most appreciated!

[@aspekt7631]

I have never in my life played any easy mode of any game simply because it is not the way the devs intended for me to play the game... I wanna play the game the way it is intended to be played.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah you do miss out on stuff in easy mode. I recommend players at least try bouncing between arcade and easy, if they want breaks from difficulty

[@Galaxy40k]

While I agree that turning down the difficulty causes the experience to lose something, there's also plenty of other reasons to play shmups, like the breakneck pacing, the graphics, the killer soundtrack, etc. So I think it's best to give the player options on how to handle the difficulty, so they can always make the game the "just right" amount of challenge for them. Having these "super easy" and then "ball busting hard" modes as the only two options frankly sucks. I'd like to see shmups try more smoothly scaling difficulty options, like with what Sakurai did in Smash Ultimate and Kid Icarus Uprising

[@kaerithmallock]

you described crimzon clover, too easy or too hard, no fun allowed.

[@goldengoldy0197]

@@kaerithmallock Arrange Boost to me always felt like the Medium difficulty in that game

[@kaerithmallock]

@@goldengoldy0197 not for me

[@StrnGuy]

I think the best example of engaging with the mechanics is playing Super Mario World vs playing Kaizo hacks. I almost never ever use the spin jump in SMW, never use it to short jump, never use precise regrabs. But these are Kaizo bread and butter. On the other hand, totally disagree about easing players in. I do strongly believe in the just right challenge. For most/all players, super easy aint it. But Mushi/Futari novice original, novice maniac, novice ultra etc? Star Parodier and Raging Blasters? Cotton Rock N Roll Tacoot runs? Sisters Royale easy? I think there are a lot of novice and normal clears that are well suited to newer players, and I think many players would do well for themselves to start with more modest clears. I think deep down you do agree with that, esp regarding Crimzon Clover novice and etc. So it’s just a matter of degrees, and where the player is at.

[@Joe-Rad]

Before Electric Underground I could barely beat Hello Kitty games. Now I can 1cc arcade modes and can beat dark souls with my c#$%. Ty Mark. Your coaching has changed my life.

[@EgillH]

I played Dodonpachi on the Saturn and I feel the number of credits I got in that game felt just right. Cave games that come out now only have SUPER EASY which is insultingly easy or you have to study patterns for 2 weeks in order to 1cc. I feel they need that in between difficulty the old old console ports had. Batsugun on Saturn too! I mean I would never be able to 1cc that game lol. With 4 credits its still super hard but still somehow within reach. After like 30-40 runs I made it to the final boss and it was really exciting. I played Akai Katana shin yesterday and 1cc on that game just seems hopeless. Sure it would be very rewarding to overcome but I suppose that is just not what I am looking for in a Schmup. I Didn't start liking Schmups until I got a PC Engine and all those 16-bit games are just fundamentally different to these bullet hells and their obsession with 1cc and hellish difficulty. Don't get me wrong some of these PCE games are tough as nails, but they rely more on reflexes than memorization. I dno I suppose I'm a semi-casual schmup enjoyer and I like the Cave games aesthetically and the atmosphere but I feel like I'm being left out with the level of dedication that Cave are expecting from their players with having no middle ground difficulty.

[@damonke79]

There's no expectation unless it's self imposed. You don't have to buy the Cave releases after all.

[@lunaria_stg]

Echoing the above commenter. Playing shmups casually is also valid!

[@JoshCzoski]

I had one more thought on this that might be a little bit stimulating: there's a difference between "easy" and "forgiving." Ultimately with score-chasing pretty much nothing is forgiving because you're competing. But you can have a hard/intense game that (1) doesn't do the one-hit death thing and (2) doesn't throw you back to the beginning as a game over penalty.\ Both of those reasons are probably why Mega Man was my favorite thing when I started gaming on the NES. Thanks to the password system, there was a sense of permanent progress; and I mean, why not? Why do I want to repeat level 1 dozens of times, thereby overcoming that exact same challenge with ease repeatedly, just to get a chance to see if I can make it through a later stage? And why does fun require that I'm a glass cannon? For the most part, what that really means is major levels of memorization unless we can make a case that a game is perfectly designed for that not to be necessary (there are some that come fairly close, though). Thankfully, playing any arcade port at home can overcome both of these to the point that I'm tempted to quit punishing myself looking for a 1CC, though I got that on a few easy shmups (Gate of Thunder, Raging Blasters, Rolling Gunner: OverPower which does not have one-hit deaths). I beat Contra 3 on Hard mode within its limited continues years ago, same with Axelay and others, I don't particularly care to go for a 1CC and I'm realizing that it's more for that reason that at a certain point it's more about excessive memorization. I'd have to be in love with it to do that: I've done no-hit Nightmare clears in Until You Fall because I've put in like 150+ hours into it (GREAT game for exercise) and that's even randomized, but it just happens when you spend a crazy amount of time memorizing it.

[@theemulationportal]

I have binge watched so many of your video's this past week it's like crack. I don't even play Schmups, but definitely going to give the genre a go your passion for them has convinced me! Ninja Gaiden collection has also been added to my list, your channel is very good I like the fact you offer a unique and actual diverse perspective on games compared to most of the watered down drivel other game reviewers provide.

[@54321ZachMr]

I think the answer ultimately lies with the developer. Case in point, Blue Revolver. The game has a mission mode that encourages mastery of each level in certain areas. The Aleste Collection had something similar. This is the developer teaching you how to play and master the game. Mission mode = Training Mode. I guarantee that SDOJ will have one too, going from their past titles. So, learning the game in arcade mode is one path to learning and mission mode is an alternate. I agree with your assessment. From your point of view, a Super Easy mode would never be used and is a pointless option that is a distilled experience. I’ve been into shmups since Centipede brought me into the world of video games. I used to play them just for to journey they provided, so I’m less of a score chaser, and more of a tourist. I’m here to see the sights for a bit and then jump to something else. I do like to revisit shmups quite often, when they fit the mood. At lunch today it was Blue Revolver……but now Fire Shark beckons……

[@neontetra1000]

I think if you played for score you would actually appreciate the easier modes more. For instance doj has a no bullet mode. Sounds crazy but this allows you to learn which enemies you have to chain within the timer limit to keep your chain going. This is invaluable when learning a scoring isystem without trying to dodge crazy amounts of bullets. I enjoyed games on a whole another level l playing for score and constantly trying to better and polish my performances rather than just scrambling to survive Who would care if a team played football and no one kept score. It’s the numbers that make it exciting for me .

[@Brocknoth]

The thing that bothers me about current difficulty in gaming is that developers seem to be down right terrified of challenging their players in anyway. They are so friggin' worried about how someone will react to their game that they will deliberately include things that encourage the player NOT to engage with the game or it's mechanics. The ability to literally remove challenge and engagement from the game with a cheat menu. And I'm not just talking about the AAA industry either the indie market does this too. This weird obsession with "accessibility" masquerading as cheat codes really bothers me. On one hand I can see why a business would want to spread it's net as wide as humanely possible to make as much profit as possible. But on the other hand why would you do ALL that work and then give your player the ability to just SKIP it? To not engage with what you built, usually taking years of your life to build it. That's the part I don't understand. It's like "what do you care about more the money or the joy of building something and then sharing it with others?" It utterly defeats the passion of game making and hurts the identity of the game itself. Is a game not built to be played? Why would you diminish that as a game developer? I just don't understand it. Not everyone who plays your game is going to enjoy it. Not everyone who plays your game is going to be satisfied with the level of difficulty. And you know what that's OK. When you design a game to be "accessible" by EVERYONE you destroy it's identity. It becomes another featureless box on a shelf next to other featureless boxes. No one is going to remember a game they literally slept through. And that as a whole in the long term will damage overall game design. Something I don't think any of us want.

[@LixeiraDoFrost]

I usually recommend ZeroRanger or Radiant Silvergun as starter games, since they actually start pretty much as casual games but eventually evolve into a proper, arcade-like shmup. "Story modes" are the way to go imo, tied together to a score and 1cc focused arcade mode for further appreciation

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Both are really fun games to start out with! Yeah they are a great way to get into the genre, especially ZeroRanger.

[@tehValorin]

How is Radiant Silvergun a "good starter game"? I've seen a lot of people playing (Do)DonPachi games without realizing that the game has laser weapon, or knowing but still using shot almost always. How are they supposed to manage seven weapons which need to be leveled up?

[@LixeiraDoFrost]

@@tehValorin Because the story mode is aimed at teaching you how to approach arcade games. Dying actually helps getting more credits and your ship slowly gets grinded. Every run helps you getting further in terms of progression by giving you credits and power, and slowly you start noticing your skill is also improving. It slowly makes you appreciate limited lives and such

[@jenscee7679]

I’m a late schmup starter at nearly 55 (though a gamer since the beginning of games). I’m currently playing novice modes of a few of the best Cave shooters. They are not super easy like Sol Cresta where I got to the end first time. Then you go to normal and get obliterated. The best novice modes still need the player to do the right things, not just remove all difficulty. It’s a balance as you don’t want to scare off new (or older codgers like me) but don’t want to lose the essence of what makes it a great genre. As I mentioned on another video, I do car race sims competitively. There are a number of driver aids you can use, but will all get you nothing but muscle memory of bad habits. My advice is to turn off the aids and learn the nuances of the car. Same with schmups really but a good novice mode will teach you a lot before you tackle the insanity of the reality of the actual game. Unless you’ve done it before, 99.9% of people will crash on turn 1 in a real sim and will crash and crash and crash until you learn the fundamentals. Very well reasoned and balanced video so thanks.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Very good insights my friend! Yes it s much better to get the feel for the genre by experiencing the push of challenge if you are willing:-)

[@MaknaEXMachina]

12:22 That's what I did when I first started playing shmups back in 2014. I played a total of about 3 credits of EoSD on Easy before realizing that I was just fooling myself, and after that I switched to Normal and suffered through those hurdles until I 1cc'd.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yep and that s my same experience. It was absolutely frustrating to get smacked around by the arcade difficulty of dodonpachi at first, but after a few months it started to click and there was no going back to pre-shmup gaming ha

[@lunaria_stg]

This was me with LLS. When I started working on Hard, I realised Easy and Normal were a total waste of time and nothing transferred over. At least the jump from Hard to Lunatic wasn't that bad.

[@MaknaEXMachina]

@lunaria_stg for me the jump was extremely painful, but I think that's cause I picked UFO as my first lunatic 1cc xdd

[@MaknaEXMachina]

@TheElectricUnderground Yeah seriously, I can't get myself to play anything else. The only way I'll play something with heavy story focus is if I was already previously invested in the series' older titles

[@JoshCzoski]

Yeah sometimes easy is good, I was just playing a little bit of Super Mario World. That game is INCREDIBLY easy. It's a cakewalk, way easier than the first 3 SMB games. But honestly, I've come to appreciate a game like that that is extremely fun despite being easy, chill out, but interesting. As I always say, I'd rather just have a BALANCED mode in arcade games/ports. Take Crimzon Clover. I don't want level 1 to be any easier than it is already on normal arcade. I just want much of a difficulty incline by the end of the game. That's why I love Battle Garegga's Premium mode (even though it still has a pretty steep incline anyway). This is why I LOVE what M2 does with training modes too, to play the game in bytes with short-term goals. I loved doing that in Ketsui, Esp. Ra. De. and others. That's why it's awesome that they're doing DaiOuJou.

[@soratheorangejuicemascot5809]

I play rpg on hard mode, intricate fighting games like Guilty Gear accent core, score-focused game like Gunvolt and shmups that only give me one credit like Hellsinker, and I still consider myself as a casual player. I just love playing game that doesn't hold back against you.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah I think it should be stressed that arcade mode is a casual mode, it is made specifically for the most general audience.

[@playing_jazz]

The spoon man... The spoon. Gunvein does an incredible job peeling away layers of the patterns while, for me, still remaining exciting despite being very very fair from frustrating.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yep GV is the best easy mode I ve played I think. That or ccwe

[@bitbenthegamedeveloper90]

One really great example how to add adjustable difficulty sliders in a shmup is Kid Icarus Uprising. In general you can tweak a lot settings to adjust the game how you want to play it. I wonder if you ever played this one or Sin & Punishment perhaps? It's also great!

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Sin and punishment you say!!! kzbin.info/www/bejne/p4XGnYOEp8eFbpI

[@Squalid]

While I agree with what you say, we are in an age where we are bombarded by games, many people don't have the time to spend hours on the same game, more niche genres like shmups, can suffer a lot from this and simply lose a lot of sales. Also, we are in an era where many just watch people playing (streamers), the simple fact that someone dedicates their time to buy and play a game nowadays is already a great achievement. I simply want the sucess of the genre, even if it means having to add modes that detract from the game, after all they are additions and not the main point. I love knowing and understanding all the mechanics, nuances of the games even if I'm not able to master them all, so I like game coaches! OBS: I never play on super easy, I usually play on normal/arcade but I use one continue or another in most games.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yes for sure! But in a way this strengthens my recommendation because you will absolutely learn faster slamming head first into arcade mode than taking all these side journeys in easy mode. So if you want to learn the genre quickly, trial by fire is the way

[@Squalid]

@@TheElectricUnderground Yes, I always try to get the experience closer to the intended one, at least as far as my patience, willingness and skill can go, many games I can't even finish, but I don't try to "cheat" to see the end playing on super easy (eg: I don't believe I'll be able to do a 1cc in Hellsinker. in my life, even so I love this game, I always play and go as far as I can go in arcade mode, for me this is part of the experience) Congrats for the videos (I need to play Ninja Gaiden, after talking about it so much in the last few videos).

[@soratheorangejuicemascot5809]

@@Squalid it took me 80hrs of playthrough to get a 1cc on Short Mission in Hellsinker. It also include me doing stupid stuff for the sake of science.

[@NIMPAK1]

Recently I got Metal Slug 3 on Steam and even though I'm not good at those types of games I've been playing it on Hard and without infinite continues. To me dying and learning how not to die is part of the fun, there's an adrenaline rush that's hard to explain. Nowadays, people care too much about winning that they forget how to have fun. I definitely understand the appeal of easier games or even life sim games, but what I don't understand to purposefully avoiding in engaging in certain types of experiences. It's one thing if money is a factor and you have to choose to between one game or another, but if you already have the game why not experience all the game has to offer.

[@michaelsteiner5203]

I played through Ketsui super easy after watching this, and I think there's some truth to the idea that it's too easy, since you can fly around wherever you want and completely ignore the idea of screen control. However, I thought stage 3 onward was a little better and the actual reason it's too easy is autobomb is turned on. I think a good balanced easy mode should either be close to the arcade in terms of patterns with autobomb enabled, or much easier patterns with autobomb off. One or the other.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

That s a great point! You know what is probably a better easy mode (and I ll point this out in my next review) is changing some stuff in custom mode. Like I think you might be able to turn on an autobomb and even increase your shot damage :-) which sounds like a fun time ha

[@jsmith108]

I don't even play many video games but I find thes evideos fascinating

[@ClockworkBard]

I don't completely agree. A counter metaphor might be to say that the point of swimming is to not drown, so you should start out learning to swim in a situation where you could drown. I don't believe that "Super Easy" is meant for low-skill shmuppers. I believe they're for people still developing basic movement and screen awareness skills. Raw tunnel vision alone can make learning the other skills an uphill fight. The challenge of a good super easy mode should be to get the player through this teething phase without developing bad habits that'll work against them at the higher tiers. Of course, learning to swim with a lung full of salt water made sense decades ago when it fed the arcade operators cash. And some of us do enjoy the trial by fire. But some folks need time just acclimating to the water.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Oh the drowning metaphor is an interesting one (fun fact I used to teach people how to swim in high school). So yeah for someone who has no idea at all what they are doing, if you throw them in the water they are just going to sink and it's gonna be ugly. So I could see that being the case for the easy mode. But what can happen is that lets say you start to teach them in small pieces like kicking, body position, and arm strokes. Well there does come a point where the swimmer needs to toss aside the kickboard (easy mode) and take the plunge. So I think the metaphor still works ha, just view easy modes as kickboards.

[@ClockworkBard]

@@TheElectricUnderground Absolutely. I feel that a super easy mode's primary goal should be to facilitate that transition to the core content and agree that the challenge is vital to getting the full experience. Folks are welcome to kick around the shallows indefinitely, but I'd hope it's because that's what they genuinely want and not because they weren't given the tools and confidence to succeed. Many super easy modes still deserve criticism for their effectiveness in this role.

[@commandershepard9920]

This is an older video (love your content), but I've been finding myself getting increasingly impatient and picky with video games (or maybe just more narrow in taste). Basically to stay engaged, I need the game to be challenging with a decent skill ceiling, but it ALSO needs to be "good". There are a lot of games that on the hardest difficulty are 'technically' hard, but not in any way that is interesting to me. An example of this is Ion Fury. I've been playing on Angel of Death difficulty, and to overcome it, I've either been rushing past 95 % of the enemies just to get to the exit, or the opposite, I go slower and lure enemies out 1-2 at a time and abuse their AI. When I look at gameplay videos of others engaging in this difficulty, I see the same strategies. Neither approach makes me feel like I'm "getting better" at the game. As opposed to say, Doom Eternal, where despite having over 300 hours put into it, I STILL feel like I'm learning new tricks, perfecting my play just a bit better, pushing myself to new challenges (master levels/custom maps/mods etc) and I just can't put it down. And when I look at players who are more skilled than me, I'm simply impressed at how much they juggle and how awesome the gameplay looks. Just a great game in general. EDIT: This may sound odd for an FPS, but it was Doom Eternal that got me interested in Arcade games, fighting games, and Beat-'em Ups, hence my interest in your channel. Been really enjoying Fight'n Rage, so thank you for that!

[@lacquerware6962]

You're an interesting guy with nuanced opinions, TEU. I appreciate that a lot.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thank you very much lacquer!!!

[@LZCleric]

Before even finishing the video I'm gonna be real The real thing that every game need is not super easy modes, it's Arcade Challenges like in Ketsui and Esprade, that thing teaches you really well and makew things super accessible

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah arcade challenge is much better teaching tool

[@mokaandboudica]

I usually start on Arcade / Normal, then adjust according to the level of frustration that I feel. I realize that on lower levels I might not be playing as intended, but I am primarily playing for enjoyment and the shmups I enjoy, I return to and increase difficulty accordingly. It's a difficult balance for developers where they want to balance their vision of how the player should approach the game with keeping them engaged. For many years I really struggled with Cave games because I was so used to 8 / 16 bit traditional shooters that I just couldn't adapt to bullet hell - I didn't have access to the stepping stones like Battle Garrega until many years later. Perhaps if I had been able to drop the difficulty a notch so I could pick up the basics without my credit being eaten by the cabinet I would have persisted longer. Returning to many of these with MAME and access to the dip switches helped, but I didn't find myself getting markedly better as a result. In the last few years it was Raging Blasters that eased me back in to Shmups, and since then my Steam library has swelled markedly, which has bee a bit of a 'Drainus' on my wallet (sorry, bad pun). I think Gunvein has done an absolutely stellar job in this regard, with a combination of mild mode that still offers a fair challenge and meaningful tutorial modes that actually teach the player how to improve their fundamentals. I've found that I've improved more from playing this game for a few hours than many other over the last couple of years, which is in itself rewarding for me even if I haven't cleared the game. The techniques it shares with the player are more transferrable than watching online videos because you can't really mess up - practice really does make perfect. Anyway, returning to your video, I think that there is a place for super easy mode that you didn't touch on - kids. My eldest is 5 and curious about video games and though there are many that they can enjoy like Coryoon, Cotton etc, having access to an option that gives them some chance to enjoy the game that dad plays without being finished inside of 30 seconds is invaluable.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah I think bouncing between easy mode and arcade mode can be effective. Back to the marathon metaphor it could be like interval training ha. Run a mile, then walk a mile. As long as those intervals of arcade difficulty are getting mixed in there, I could see that being effective.

[@Arandui]

I had a funny moment with Easy/Novice Mode in Mushihimesama and Mushihimesama Futari: In Mushi, Novice Ultra Mode is still very hard, even you get more bombs and the TLB is very different (you can bomb him without triggering his infamous bomb shild). In Futari, I got a 1cc in Novice Ultra Mode in literally first try, thanks to the auto-bombs, you can not disable. I think making an Easy/Novice Mode is one of the hardest things for shmup developer, especially for proter of old arcade games, which normally don't have any difficult options.

[@futureskeletons66669]

It's super easy to say super easy is too easy if you're a bullet hell 1cc player. I'm not. I find super easy brings something like Ketsui to the level of say Raiden or a Psikyo game and makes it actually playable. I love STGs, but I don't care that much to give a shit about getting clears. That's not why I play them. I admire guys like yourself who can and I take pointers from. Watching yours or Jaimers' or Iconoclast's videos helps as does downloading superplays, but it's just videogames and I'm not going to spend all day on one game. When I play Arcade mode on a Cave game, I usually get to stage 4 on one life and then it all falls apart, but by this stage the whole screen is filled with bullets and anyone watching me play is saying "Jesus man! wtaf is going on?" I do OK, prob better than average, but I'm totally fine with that. I just want to shoot stuff and see lots of numbers. In fact, a lot of the Shmups I own, I actually prefer the Arrange modes. Mushihimesama Futari's 360 mode for example is the only mode I play.

[@RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS77]

I do see some value in an "easier" mode because you get either credit feeding/super easy mode, which is SO easy it's boring, or arcade 1cc, which feels so difficult it's unattainable in a lot of games. Something like Deathtiny mode in Ketsui (if you're busy playing for survival anyway) comes close though.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Absolutely! The arrange modes like premium and deathtiny are fantastic for beginner players for that reason of being challenging, but forgiving

[@lunaria_stg]

Shame that M2 isn't doing arrange modes anymore. Really wanted to see what they would do with DOJ.

[@riggel8804]

Gatekeeping shouldn't be a dirty word. I'm okay with Mark the gatekeeper...Maybe gatekeeper has too much negative connotation. Umpire is a better word-someone who can, "call balls and strikes"...umpire is a goofy sounding word though.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

damn right my friend! Someone needs to gatekeep and filter through what's quality, and if it's me that needs to play the heavy that's fine :-)

[@soratheorangejuicemascot5809]

What are the positive things in gatekeeping?

[@riggel8804]

@@soratheorangejuicemascot5809 In this case it protects the hobby from turning into something wack. For example say this year nothing but euroshmups get made and nobody says anything. Next year everyone starts calling run and guns shmups and no one says anything. The following year people start turning in high scores using save states and no one says anything. By 2026 the shmup community would be weaker and the glue holding it together would desolve. Before you know it you're playing Mario bros on the weekend and getting the nagging feeling that something is wrong.

[@soratheorangejuicemascot5809]

@@riggel8804 so it will be like how Otome get polluted by "shonen" tropes?

[@riggel8804]

@@soratheorangejuicemascot5809 Aint no otome bringing their shonen up in here on Mark's watch.

[@vidyergaemenjoyer447]

Great video as usual! The most frustrating thing to me about people whining over a game being """too difficult""" is that they have 999 out of every 1000 modern games they could go play and enjoy the silky smooth sailing of no difficulty or resistance of any kind. But instead they complain about the 1 game that is actually challenging in some way and demand that it accommodate them. I don't think it is "bad design" to want to return to a time when just beating a game felt like an accomplishment. My grandparents bought me a copy of Super Ghouls n' Ghosts when I was in first grade and I never forgot how happy I was to be able to beat it. If it had included as part of the normal options a "no damage mode" or something stupid like that, it definitely lessens the joy of those kinds of things since just seeing the later parts of the game ceases to be a reward for overcoming the difficulty.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yes, we saw this first hand with final vendetta actually. Vendetta made the bold choice of pushing players to 1cc it, rather than allowing them to continue, and man the backlash was loud and they patched in continues. See, for me, I really liked the 1cc forced requirement, but the volume of feedback is always going to be on the casual players side unfortunately. So they will often get changes made in their favor, but good luck as a hardcore player arguing for the game to be harder ha.

[@SkipRogersJr]

This was a great video. From your perspective I 100 percent agree, easy mode rarely prepares a player for normal arcade difficulty. However, I know I love stg, not for game design, but the art and music. Difficulty can be a real bar to enjoying a games music and art. To me easy mode allows me to play by myself and enjoy are the great work that was put into other aspects of the game. I play an RPG called Etrian Odyseey, and its known for its brutal difficulty. They put an easy \ casual mode in the game and people were furious, but Im sure many people never made it past the 2nd stratum without easy mide abd they missed all of yuzo koshiro's music before easy mode. Also for those who work a lot easy \ casual mode lets us play a lot if games without substanutal time investments. So even without conveying the essence of the game, a lot of eady modes have their place.

[@GaryHodgesDVSM]

GREAT talk about this! One of my favorite videos of yours.

[@J.J._777_]

Some difficult modes might be intended for children and/or people with disabilities.

[@possumgrits825]

Agreed. Very articulate and informative. Thank you.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thanks for tuning in possum :-) I spent a good deal of time putting the subject together for this one :-)

[@Aceskies]

A couple hours ago I 1cc Strikers 1945 II in Monkey mode. Ya, it is quite disgusting that I am that bad at the game, as bad as a monkey I guess? I got the game this week and playing in the crappy Switch port. You know what? I am super happy with that, and next I am going to try Child mode, then Normal. I dont know if you were thinking on Psikyo difficulty while doing the video (sorry I am only 2 years old in the shmup area) but I can tell that in this genre I need to take small and progressive goals. So while I am playing Akai Katana in Arcade difficulty (currently for score I reach stage 4 boss) sometimes I prefer to go step by step. While I understand your point and mostly agree with it, I can say the easiest mode can be like the tutorial of a non-shmup game, with the plus of motivation if you get the 1cc through the difficulty curve of the game. PD: Also worth mentioning I have Strikers 1945 ports on PS2, which I hope its better in lag.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah I mention that this progressing difficulty model is much better, like touhou does the same thing. Because what you are doing is taking gradual leaps upward, but you still need to leap. In super easy, it would be like there is monkey mode, and then full arcade difficulty with nothing in-between.

[@alexk9295]

Yeah, I don't play easy modes either. I'd rather play a game on normal or hard and never get passed the first level than having no challenge at all. However, if some people like it, why not have it. Also, some people might be physically challenged and super easy mode might be the only way for them to play the game and still be a huge challenge. It's also very useful for little children. I recently played some games with a four year old. Their hand eye coordination and reaction skills are so incredibly bad. So let devs put the easy modes in there. Having the mode in there doesn't effect you.

[@1CCJAM]

Some excellent and well thought out points here! I agree these modes seem pointless. I think Crimson Clover’s Novice mode does a great job of teaching the fundamentals, and giving new players a significant challenge. The jump to Arcade mode is brutal though. I’ve always liked how the Mushimesama series grades the difficulty across three modes. The best way to support new players is with training modes, save states, continues and balanced graduated difficulty modes. Diluting the fundamentals of the genre out of existence is not the answer.

[@julianseph842gamez5]

In Ketsui Super Easy mode, difficilty is easier, you start with 6 bombs and you face an easier version of DOOM.

[@Phantom_Zer0]

great content as always Mark, great editing as well very funny 😁.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Thank you very much zero. I am happy to hear that cuz i spent hours and hours putting this badboy together. Basically just imagine me chained to my computer for 10 hours lol editing

[@PLTOTA]

I'm a glutton for difficulty in shmups (got an OK list of 1CC's to my name, but I am far, far from a super player!). I was never personally interested in super easy modes, but always hoped good ones like M2's might welcome more players to the shmup scene. Now my almost five-year-old son is gravitating to shmups, and it's amazing to see him get to play bullet hell (currently on a Ketsui Super Easy 5CC!). Taking turns, sharing the genre, him getting into playing to improve and hone his style? I'm thrilled super easy exists! Good super easy modes that don't just drop the bullet count and challenge level, but rather adjust the design or implementation of game systems a little to recognise the drop in bullet count? Yes please. As long as they don't dilute or otherwise impact the main or harder difficulty settings. Maybe my son will get that Super Easy Ketsui 1CC soon! (He also calls shmups 'rocket ship bang games'. I might start to go with that!)

[@room.beer.controller3032]

I am basically just clicking on all of these guys vids and liking them.

[@bills__________]

and now this is what i think of every time i see my spaghetti spoon

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Awesome!!! Mission accomplished lol

[@GojiGuy]

I don't think shmups should focus on easy modes but should instead focus on making practise and perseverance rewarding.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Agreed yes, if we can somehow make failure in the arcade difficulty fun that would be a great way to both teach players quickly and keep them motivated

[@HighLanderPonyYT]

I found that a sense of narrative mystery keeps me motivated. "What's the next stage about?" "What's the next ship unlock or weapon upgrade?" "Who's the final boss?" "When's the next cutscene?" Etc.

[@yxlplig33]

Does anyone else give themselves a time limit for 1CCs? The main thing stopping me from going for better than 3-6 credit clears in Cave games is I want to be able to do it in ~8 hours of practice/attempts like I do with retro games (eg: Eliminate Down 1CC, Violent Soldier 1CC, Hellfire MD deathless are probably my hardest clears). Whenever someone tells me they played every day for 2 months for their clear, it kind of evokes the infinite monkey theory for me. How dysfunctional/impractical is this attitude?

[@TheDannylarson]

Beat em ups like jitsu squad and a whole tutorial level pretty much, makes me hate modern best em ups

[@franciscor390]

That shit made me skip the game entirely, i was actually somewhat hyped for that game, but making a crushingly boring tutorial level obligatory is a nail on the cross.

[@sadisticD]

I've been looking at this game. What's the deal with it?

[@TheDannylarson]

@@sadisticD it's decent, nothing special compaired to other similar games that have come out in the last few years, I've been playing a really good game called Vengeful Guardian Moonrider. If your into action plateformers even a little bit then check it out, made by the same people who made Blazing Chrome!

[@PedroFerreira-sx2gd]

Games should have dificulty options for all kinds of players, altough i think all the games should start in default dificulty and them unlock easier difficulties when the player fails. Also renember that when you play hard games you may get to the point where you get stuck and can t improve. even if i practice i could never 1cc many games. Also we can't forget people with disabilities that Also have right to play games.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I like this idea. Have the player come in and get a taste of the standard difficulty. Then, if they keep struggling, have an option pop up in the continues like, "Do you want to try easy mode?" that would be great because it would subtly push players to play the standard difficulty.

[@southy7523]

I have been playing a lot of Novice modes in CAVE/CCWE etc. and really been enjoying them. As other commenters have said they don't truly prepare you for the Arcade modes but they still have an amount of challenge and you ususally cannot clear them with cooking untensils, they are less 'easy' or 'novice' to me and more 'casual', i.e if you don't have the time to practice the full arcade mode but still want to experience the actual game and have a chance of a clear. If devs want players to experience the game as intended, then potentially just tweaking the settings for 'easy' to have the same patterns and speed but include more extends and more bombs rather than reducing the intensity would be a better solution than we get in most games now.

[@Coreagrus]

When you returned to the orange juice analogy, since shmups are involved in the conversation, I started thinking about chaining systems for a moment. Ha ha ha!

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah chaining systems are so great because they are their own dynamic difficulty systems built into the existing arcade gameplay

[@Coreagrus]

@@TheElectricUnderground Weird response, considering I was just laughing at 'orange juice' as a term - referring to the color that fills the chain meter. I don't disagree though. Scoring systems in general can certainly be seen as added avenues of difficulty in games.

[@47beethoven]

I think a more realistic approach would be custom mode to change the hitbox and use the dip switches if you want an in-between (or really, just play arcade challenge and focus on an early stage until you got some of the very basics). I do think they said the purpose of the super easy mode is to make ppl feel like superplayer... not turn them into a competent players. I guess its just for people who want to shot random stuff while listening to raging deicide.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah and that's why I don't think the super easy mode is effective. I agree completely that custom mode is actually the mode new players should investigate (i will bring this up in my review when it comes out) as it's still giving you the core experience, but with some safety bumpers.

[@JogosMofados]

I loved this video, many valid points. Despite having to beat Super Easy to get a trophy, I see super easy as a way to play these games from time to time with people that are not into shmups. I even mentioned it on your previous video, I played co-op Ketsui with a friend on Super Easy, and she had to continue the game to see it through. On super easy. A hardcore souls game player that had a hard time on super easy mode. But really, I prefer to suck on arcade mode than having it too easy

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Glad you enjoyed the video! Super easy is a fun idea for the very very new (as in never played shmups before) but beyond that it loses its value because even casual players are going to quickly graduate out of it. I think even for very new players a more robust easy mode would be a fun time :-) You could even have them credit feed a bit.

[@JogosMofados]

@@TheElectricUnderground this is where Gunvein nails it with the Mild move. It is easier, but it's not given for free, it helps build the skills for the Intense difficulty and it's not hard to beat with a few continues at some practice. This is a perfect example of the skill build up you mentioned.

[@Ártica-26]

Super easy I agreed is a problem. But easy is essential! Starting from from normal and progressing to hard you may forget something simple and start becoming overwhelming by the mechanics Easy reduces the damage of enemies and remembers theres a way where you can be aggressive, that the enemies react diferent on the net level and you can use this to remember that. That's how I could beat shmup games I never had the self trust to beat

[@iraplikeyoubreathe]

Shout outs to Crimzon Clover for getting so much right.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

the game is one of the greats for a reason! Not just in terms of the actual game design, but also the game package (boost mode is another great option for new players actually)

[@iraplikeyoubreathe]

Thank for the dope content.

[@torrentthom4734]

On the lowest development scale, Easy Mode should have some sort of randomness built in to keep the game exciting. Ex: a boss/enemy switching up a pattern of attack to keep the player on their toes. Raiden III for PS2 had a Guide Mode where you could watch footage of how to beat specific sections of the game that would also show you boss strats. Does this mode make the game easy? Somewhat. The Player still needs to put in the work, but with less frustration of loosing life after life. But, as a hidden bonus, it makes the Player more confident to pick Hard-mode and stick with the game.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I think that's a really good idea :-) Like imagine an easy mode that starts off pretty low grade, but yes keeps mixing things up and also slowly increasing in difficulty the better you play. That would be great because if you can still get the player to take punishment to learn, but also keep them hooked that could be a strong teaching tool.

[@torrentthom4734]

@@TheElectricUnderground for sure! but, those are areas of algorithmic AI. not the easiest nut to crack for an average indie developer. but someone needs to innovate :D

[@neontetra1000]

Personally I think the game should have adjustable difficulty or have a rank system attached to scoring. These games are designed for Japanese hardcore players in An arcade setting and are designed to kill you and get you off the cab. I played for years and got increasingly frustrated dying by stage 3 end then I started researching the scoring systems and switched to playing on novice modes And concentrating on achieving a better score. This made the game much more exciting and rewarding for me personally . I agree m2 super easy modes got it wrong and were too easy. But try getting a 2-all on my game ddp-Dfk . novice mode 2-all Is certainly not easy and has given me hours of fun trying to achieve it and beat my score and try to meet hibachi. I play power style so don’t have 35 autbombs but novice modes and arrange modes were the best thing that could have happened Tommy Shmup career as I can now play for score which is the true way to play.. Also if you want the genre to grow why would you want a lot of players to get annoyed and give up after getting murdered 30 times by stage 3. Removing easy mode is a bad idea to me. You can choose to play it after all .

[@PikaStu666]

I’m very much a Shmup noob, however I generally play shmups at their default arcade difficulty mode. There’s exceptions, if there’s an option to auto bomb when hit, I’ll turn that on, and in Battle Garegga, I play the mode with the more-visible enemy bullets. I don’t tend to select easy mode though, and restrict using credits (maybe 3-4 credits then restart). That way I find making progress more rewarding. I’ll never 1cc a Shmup, I’m ok with that. But if I can eventually complete a Shmup in under 4 credits, then I’m happy.

[@andyauthor2007]

Playing ESP Ra De with a spaghetti spoon... LMFAO! I like the easy modes because what I do is play through the game on easy so I can see the whole game. Then I go up to normal mode until I can consistently get a clear without using too many credits or continues. How many credits or continues is too many you ask?... it depends on the game. Then I tackle hard or arcade mode.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah I think they can work well as warm up and introductory material

[@TWKIC]

Great video I wonder if there is some kind of overlap of video games delivering gratification and dopamine boosts with other form of media consumption such as short form content like tick tocks and KZbin shorts are more desired and consumed then longer forms of media

[@Coreagrus]

I much prefer something like ZeroRanger's White Vanilla. It's not really an easy mode, but that's what makes it great, I think. It's generally easier, but it's also fundamentally different from Green Orange, and it can be pretty hard in its own way if you push yourself to excel at it. Point being - it's not just a strictly easier version of the game that becomes obsolete once you can handle the higher difficulties, but rather - a mode with unique appeal and challenge. I wanna master both WV and GO. Speaking of ZeroRanger, I didn't realize that the hand bullets used by [REDACTED] are an inspiration from another shmup. The more you know. I certainly need to play more shmups.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yes zeroranger is a head of the game on stuff like that. White vanilla is an amazing introduction mode, much stronger than super easy in pretty much every way. And yeah reg hands attack comes from esprade, which is pretty awesome

[@evan2902]

I almost always play on normal with any genre. It's almost a reflex because as a kid I played quite a few games that would end prematurely or skip around if you played on easy (Contra 3 being the biggest offender here but also a lesser known game on the Genesis called High Seas Havoc) and I didn't want to miss anything. One thing I don't particularly understand about the shm'up fandom though is this mentality that you *should* be playing on hard mode all the time. I've noticed that a lot on forums especially when it comes to the console stuff.

[@psymagearcade]

I agree on Super Easy modes. Just from seeing your footage of ESP Ra De, it's like if you play a game of Street Fighter against your friend, but then your friend just puts down the controller and does nothing. Once you realize what's going on, it's not fun at all. Plus, you're not learning anything either. However, I do like most of the Novice modes I've played in shmups, like Crimzon Clover and Mushi for example. So I agree with you making the argument about nuance and scale.

[@Tuxedo__flask]

There were about 8 years where gaming became incredibly boring to me. I still owned systems and would ty to play them, but the idea of trying to derive some enjoyment from a game like GTA became less and less likely. Gameplay would become repetitive almost immediately and I would lose interest quickly. Not to mention, in comparison to lots of my friends and older brother, I just wasn't that great at video games. Sometime last year though, I started playing a couple of games I remembered enjoying from my childhood. Gradius 3 & Smash TV for the SNES. While some could argue that the gameplay on either of these games is also repetitive, it is an entirely different thing. There was always something to strive for, whether it be a higher score or quite honestly, to get further in the game (even after sinking hours into both of these, I still have come nowhere close to completing either game). I provide this anecdote only because my love for these games is what introduced to the world of shmups. I am outing myself as still pretty new to the genre. And still not very good! That being said, I think all of your points are spot-on. I have dumped hours into Mushihimesama's Original mode on the Xbox 360. The best run I have ever had was reaching the Stage 3 Boss without using a continue (like I said, I am not very good lol). Now, even though I know I am not super skilled at these games, I still refuse to ever play a Novice/Super Easy mode for many of the reasons you've outlined. Playing on an Original, Normal or Arcade mode may be brutally hard for someone like me, but it also gives me a greater sense of reward and feels like it actually helps me hone my skills (and maybe I am also a bit of a masochist 😅). Playing a Novice or Super Easy mode seems like it would be counterproductive. Love your content man!

[@TheElectricUnderground]

That is fantastic to hear my friend! I have a story you might connect with where, when I first started playing the genre, I thought that stage 3 of Dodonpachi DaiOuJou was impossible to beat lol. I thought the game was trolling me. then, after a few weeks of getting slapped around over and over, it started to come together and click for me :-)

[@daviddefortier5970]

It took me over a hundred hours of practice to 1 loop clear dodonpachi on easy mode. It felt like a huge accomplishment for me, and i needed that easy mode. Could never do it in normal mode... Let alone 2 loops

[@DavidGarcia-qf7gc]

I was one of the super-easy mode. First of all, I wasn't offended at all because I know that your arguments were right (and if someone is offended by that, better look elsewhere). As I said I play lots of arcade, and I have played lots of arcades in a real arcade (heck, I've played original Space Invaders with my father in an original cabinet). Sometimes, I need a challenge, but sometimes I need a walk in the park. Sometimes I need to enjoy the graphics and the music and sometimes my masochist self wants to be destroyed by Dodonpachi Saidaioujou (I've never been through the first stage). All your points are valid and agreeable but I like the variety of having something like "super easy" to have a walk in the battlefield.

[@Neobelmont1]

I have not finished this yet, but I will say I only know success or failure from shmups, meaning that easy is not usually on the menu, however, I think touhou delivers in that aspect. And that's really the only one I know maybe besides gleylancer.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yes touhou is very effective with new players overall, it is the genre s number 1 resource of new players I think, that I have seen

[@Neobelmont1]

@@TheElectricUnderground And yet I've only played two main line game, wily beast and wicked creature and phantasmgoria or however the heck you spell I WILL never get those name right.

[@soratheorangejuicemascot5809]

Hey TEU, the game called Vengeful Guardian: Moonrider just came out. I think that game might interest you as an old school Ninja Gaiden player. Edited. Whoopsie, it is coming tomorrow

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yes! I'm going to cover it :-)

[@scalliano]

I 1cc'd Deathtiny's Super Easy mode on my first attempt. And I suck. Espgaluda II's Novice modes at least retain the general gist of the bullet patterns and can still give casual players a decent challenge. Especially if you end up fighting True Seseri. That said, jumping into regular Arcade mode is still a pretty big step up.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah and I think right at the beginning having a milder easy mode to get your bearings is a solid approach. It's just that this mode should be seen as a warm up, in my opinion, to prepare you for the leap that will be the arcade mode. If you only stick to these easy modes though, you will truly miss out on the meat of the genre.

[@Mingodough]

Mark as a fellow American who is a little overweight, I imagine most people cannot walk 23 miles in a day. Lmao

[@sarethums]

Absolutely loved this video and so many parts about it, too many to mention.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I am happy to hear that sarethumbs, I was chained to my computer for like 10 hours editing it all together lol

[@Minodrec]

Your marathon exemple is great. Yes when someone isn't able to walk 42km, it's ill advised to register for a marathon. Many peaple will never walk 42km in a single day. Simply because that's a hudge time commitment (it takes 9h20min to walk 42 km with an average 4.5 km/h walking speed). And that's exactly the issue with schmups. A 1cc in normal mode in a Cave game is far more diffcult than anything an average modern gamer ever experienced. Most modern gamers will never used a training mode the same way most ppl will never walk 42km in one day. You should realise that competitive modern gaming is infested with posers who use a small amount of training mode to justify the result they got threw purchasing a cheat engine. So the number of ppl actually considering training as a fun activity is ridiculously small. I agree that's a better achievement as a beginner to no miss crimzon clover stage 3 in novice using training mode than a 1cc in a super easy mode. But their isn't even an achievement for this.

[@hooksnfangs6006]

While I agree with you that the Super Easy mode in EspRade is ridiculously easy, it actually got me to love the game even more. Since surviving was so easy, I ended up using the Super Easy mode to learn and develop scoring routes which I applied into arcade runs. Spaghetti Spoon Runs will be the new way to judge SHMUP's easy modes!

[@TheElectricUnderground]

I think if you are using it as a tool to look at the game (essentially as a no bullet mode it sounds like) that can be pretty interesting. I also use it to input lag test since I don't have to worry about dodging bullets. But these are still more novel uses of the mode and I do think it would be much better served if it was a proper easy mode that could lean closer to the arcade difficulty.

[@benjaminturkalj4415]

I personally think that a super easy mode is fine and worthwhile for those that just want to jump in and out for fun, or for those that have some impairements. Truth is its just another option and if you dont want to play it just dont. For instance, my daughter is hsppy just driving around and looking at things in mario kart with absolutely no concern with finishing races.

[@NamooNara]

‘Super easy shmup’ sounds like an oxymoron. Like ‘easy-listening death metal’

[@robertjohansson9853]

Endless credits but still playing on normal level where I can try to beat it with less and less lifes lost. Also Dont spam bombs on bosses when the advance pattern show up. This has worked well for me

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Yeah putting time into the game on the arcade difficulty is going to help you learn faster because there are lessons it will teach you that the easy modes simply cannot teach you, because the intensity is lacking. Like training for a marathon, you'll never build up the stamina you need by walking 23 miles. You'll have to start actually running at short intervals until you build up the strength to sustain for longer. Basically low intensity cannot fully prepare you for high intensity.

[@hngdman]

I guess the intention behind Super Easy Mode in the M2 STG series is to give even the worst players a way to see the whole game, even if it's only to enjoy the visuals and music. It feels pointless in most cases but I appreciate its inclusion in the Fire Shark port because holy shit, I'm not beating the arcade version through normal means anytime soon.

[@soratheorangejuicemascot5809]

Hellsinker also got the best implementation of easy mode. The dev made "Short Mission" to be an unlockable if you reached the final stage. Ohh wait it isn't actually easy mode more like a shorter mode.

[@TheElectricUnderground]

Hellsinker is a crazy work of mad genius, I wouldn't be surprised if it had a great easy mode or something

[@soratheorangejuicemascot5809]

@@TheElectricUnderground the dev thinks that his game is "easy mode"

[@MrRawnch]

I think the point of easy is to either simply enjoy the experience or understand the concept of the game. I think unlockables and rewards for clearing normal and hard are important for home releases. The problem with some SHMUPS is predetermined navigation for survival or spongey enemies. Some players go into certain games with the idea that they need to destroy everything on the screen. Some SHMUPs are defensive in nature where you simply need to survive.

[@MPSTG_brb]

This reminds me that you didn't play the Toaplan ones (I haven't yet either). But those supereasy modes are apparently quite fun because of the added rank and scoring systems tied to NMNB, where the games can get even harder than the arcade versions! Check them out! :D Having said that, I proceed to watch the video XD

[@TheElectricUnderground]

That is really funny. The toaplan games are nutty overall, so this does not surprise me. Not even m2 can contain toaplan lol

[@Ishmokin]

@@TheElectricUnderground Its a hidden feature of Super Easy Mode for the Toaplan M2STG specifically. Basically if you stock pile bombs and not use them, and not get hit (because you autobomb if you get hit) you will reach a point the rank goes up so high it becomes harder than Arcade mode, then the benefit is you start racking up tick points. But once you bomb or get hit, the rank goes back to super easy rank thus losing the tick points. So basically for experts Super Easy mode becomes a high score chasing mode and is very difficult to No Miss No Bomb. Its a hidden feature and not everyone knows about it, so its mistaken to be the same vanilla super easy mode as the other M2STG. You can check out the leaderboards and its very competitive. Doing a 1cc in Easy mode getting hit or using bombs will put you in 250th to 300th place easy. But yeah I enjoyed the video and I agree about difficulty being very important and is part of the STG experience.

[@sladejosephwilson2300]

This is how I felt about Phoenix mode in fire emblem fates. It's a very easy mode that makes you question what's the point in playing the game? It's essentially a mode that lets you revive after every turn. It's like having infinite ammo in a shooter. Fire emblem is a strategy game that has the option of classic mode(permanent death my favorite)or casual mode (revival after the level is finished.)