The Problem With Hard Mode (In Some Games)

[@estatic6258]

some games i really prefer playing in the hardest difficulty because i want to feel immersed in the world, and feel like theres real struggle with what im doing. i generally hate games that just let you bulldoze enemies when your character is a 20 year old with 0 combat training. the main games i hate having max difficulty on would be fighting games such as MK (especially 2) because of the input reading. input reading just hurts your soul, and when you're paying coins at an arcade, you're literally getting beat up and having your money stolen from you lol

[@psymagearcade]

I agree 100%. I think a lot of RPGs need to do a better job of making the player earn their place in the world instead of making the world revolve around them from the get-go.

[@OGYouTubeEnjoyer]

Hard mode in most games is just chore mode. Just beef up the hp pool and make them hit harder. Nothing intuitive. Just boring busy work.

[@kalasatwater2224]

My backlog is too big to play on hard mode

[@johnforse9375]

This is 100% facts regarding fighting games -- all the most interesting tech (mix-ups, cross-ups, footsies, etc) go out the window and it all boils down to cheesing frame traps. It makes playing many classic game campaigns completely un-fun after the 3rd or 4th match-up.

[@Neogears1312]

It’s how you know ppl asking for “single player CoNtEnT” for fighting games are the ppl who don’t play them.

[@huevonesunltd]

In fighting games , the cheaper the boss is, the more lame the cheese is. But trust me though, you wouldn't want a difficult AI that actually plays close to a real player, not if its done the traditional way anyway, i don't think its seen in any fighting game yet other than some unofficial mods in some games where the AI instead of playing like a robot that reacts to every move, instead they aggressively engage against you by playing how the character is supposed to be played at high level, which might sound good except that on offense they will always do the right thing and won't give you an opportunity to even cheese, even if you are a really good player you won't win against them, imagine a player who is always right in every mixup, also able to pressure you and also got frame perfect reaction, trust me i know how it feels like and its horrible its unwinnable no matter how good you are, there's no fighting game with AI like that without any mods, imagine a casual player against that, imagine the general from kaiser knuckle but worse, these AI don't even need to rely on cheap moves at all either. So if anything, the best way would be to make it so its like a mini game when you fight the boss, with a clear pattern for you to play with rather than it forcing you to play cheap to beat it. And for more advanced players some kind of mode where you can actually play mindgames against the AI which is not possible to do the conventional way, it would have to be with a modern machine learning AI that learned to also make human mistakes from human replays, most traditional AIs you cannot bait them for example to do a wake up DP because they are programmed to only DP if you are in the air or already doing a move that they can beat, if you do nothing then they don't do the DP, it would require a very intentional kind of manual programming for it to be able to simulate human mistakes and still it would feel robotic

[@theconsolekiller7113]

Great video. I agree with there being good types of challenge and poorly designed. I really enjoy extreme modes in games that have a great foundation because , when done right, they really push your limits with the mechanics, your skill and understanding of those mechanics and increase your appreciation of a game. On the opposite end, extreme modes can really expose flaws with the game's design that werent as evident on default difficulty. Things like slightly long load screens upon death, controls that are not as responsive as they could be for very specific but important actions (healing, grabbing items, aiming quickly, etc), and cutscenes playing after each death, again and again, each time you replay a section become alot more irritating and tedious , rather than legitimately challenging. Some of the laziest examples of extreme mode changes for me are, inflating enemy HP, making the mode a 1 CC or No Death Mode (this is a condition I can put on myself), input reading (something you reminded me of) and reducing your starting lives upon using a continue or starting the game (when nothing else is changed). Sometimes inflating enemy HP works ok. In Double Dragon Advance the Expert Mode basically doubles enemy health, but thier aggression levels seem about the same, maybe there is some extra enemies, but the main thing is the double health. Normal mode is already very aggressive and enemies dont take turns hitting you. That is good, but on normal you can clear out the enemies fast so its not as big of an issue. On expert mode with double health you are fighting within those crowds for alot longer. It forces you to really master crowd control and I think it worked well for that game. I did a 1 CC expert run and came to appreciate the mode overall. Though I think maybe normal mode couldve been less aggressive to leave room for a more aggressive expert mode. The worst example of inflated HP for me was when I completed Titan Mode in God Of War 2. A boss should not take 10 straight minutes to kill when it can kill you in one hit. It got pretty insane. The Theseus boss took about 10 mins straight without fucking up and the bosses have no health bars in that game. Everything had a shit ton more HP and that felt very lazy for that game. I think the reason for that is because enemies were already spongy enough in the normal mode, so it just got obscene on Titan. You have strange games like Jim Power for the SNES which are SUPER HARD on the Easy setting and when you set it to Hard the gameplay is exactly the same, except now you start with a few less lives (You get 1 ups anyway so this doesnt make it THAT MUCH harder to beat). I beat the game on Easy but met the Hard mode requirement lives wise, so I wouldve beaten Hard had I set it to that. Its lazy. Extreme modes became more prevalent with the Gamecube,Xbox,PS2 gen I noticed. There was a few outliers. You had Metal Storm for the NES which had an insane Expert mode which I completed. Rtype 3 and Gyruss had MUCH harder second rounds after completing the first loop. Many games would have slightly harder second loops but these games upped the challenge quite a bit, especially Metal Storm. Of course there was always those games that are insanely difficult on Default. Jim Power for SNES and Gun.Smoke for Arcade fit that category. Those are nothing new. You also have games that say fuck it and straight out break the original mechanics just to make the game hard. This renders everything you learned in your first playthrough useless, atleast concerning the aspects that were changed. A good example was Uncharted 4. When you set the game to Crushing Mode all the enemies now see you across the fucking map , no matter what. It basically renders the stealth completely useless. So what happened was I had to just bait enemies out, eliminate some and retreat, rinse and repeat until I wiped every fucking enemy off the map. You also have enemies spawn in right ontop of your ass, and you die within a few hits. You end up completely running out of ammo alot more often too so there may be less ammo or more enemy HP, its been a while, but it starts to feel poorly balanced. One last thing is shitty scoring systems. When I reached 40 million points in Ninja Gaiden Black's mission mode I had to farm missions with the weakest weapons using charged attacks only (ultimate techniques). This meant ten minutes luring enemies into these attacks again and again with one little fuck up possibly ending the run, since it was usually done with no healing, no magic on Master Ninja difficulty for the most points. The game became pretty fuckin broken when playing for score. The scoring system relied way too much on spamming ONE MOVE, the ultimate attacks, again and again. This turns the game into something very different. Chaining these UT's is also the fastest way to kill shit so it becomes the main thing to do. Many of the other weapons and moves become useless to use anymore, if playing for points. NGB also had other issues like shitty camera. Alot of times I would have to fight enemies blindly by waiting for camera shake or some indication of a charging enemy offscreen. I also had to manipulate the camera to get the AI to do certain things, rather than countering or fighting an enemy I could see, normally. There was cumbersome menus that you had to go in and out of to get the most points. You would equip an armlet that gives more essence (points basically) then unequip it after attacking to do something else then back into the menu again, rinse and repeat after each attack. Picking up arrows or other items was very clunky. Aiming was really shitty as the game went into a FPS viewpoint with very bad control. The time it took to get situated in that new position usually meant getting knocked out of it and taking massive damage. This is a good example of things that dont seem like that big of an issue in Normal mode. Though that game is quite hard on Normal your first time through. Some of my first extreme mode completions were in games like Resident Evil 4 on Professional and Halo 2 on Legendary. That's when I became more conscious of those modes. Ive been gaming since 86 at 6 years old so I was around for all the major transitions. Its definitely possible to fuck up hard modes in great games, so it does take some thought to design it well. I dont mind if they are brutally difficult, thats often a preference but its important how that difficulty is achieved, for it to feel like a worthwhile challenge to complete. It should align with skills you learn from completing the default mode and escalate things from there. Having completed most of these fighting games, including the very cheap, cheating ones, SNK is one of the biggest creators of cheap final bosses, and the main thing I find that works is going through a process of trying every single character against an opponent and trying a combination of very simple moves to find the exploits. I often find that special moves dont work well on these enemies and its usually the cheap bullshit that works such as finding a huge character with long reach and spamming a jump kick to the head followed my leg sweep or playing super defensively , letting the boss come to you, and countering him on a specific attack only, or even running out the timer and having more health than the boss to win. Theres a whole list of exploits I test out in these games by this point, but it takes time to run through all of them with each character, its tedious and feels like a cheap challenge. Between input reading and opponents straight out cheating and bypassing animations to grab and throw you (some channels have gone into detail on this) you pretty much have to do some cheap shit to win. My channel documents around 2,600 of these playthroughs currently as I got recording capabilities in 2016, which was about 30 years into my gaming. I had around 1000 completions prior. The main goal for me is high volume completions (Filling out my KILL LIST spreadsheet), so I document that on the channel. I hunt down a shitload of easy KILLS for the list , but when I really like a game I usually want to challenge myself with an extreme mode.

[@lpfan4491]

There are three rules: Unavoidable damage is a nogo, be careful when making the enemy literally more powerful than the player in every single way(Because those are a nightmare when the AI isn't dumb/obviously exploitable) and only let the AI cheat in ways that enhance the game in some way. Like say, if the only opponent with input reading can canonically read minds and is statistically weaker to compensate for it, then you suddenly have a MORE interessting situration and not one that is less so.

[@psymagearcade]

A little bit of input reading is probably okay and a lot of players probably won't notice it. Ultimately, there needs to be moderation and still have ways for the player to win somehow that preferably don't require glitches.

[@keithcourville1]

Great video, I'm so glad you addressed the input reading. Arcade fighting games were brutal. They would let you win one, then smash you. Elden Ring does the same thing too, lots of bosses have attacks that trigger when you try to heal!

[@psymagearcade]

Yep, input reading goes well beyond fighting games.

[@xXspringsXx]

This video earned you a new sub, keep them coming like this

[@psymagearcade]

Thank you! I really appreciate that.

[@simon41978]

I did finish SFII CE on one credit. If you choose dictator you can do the flaming torpedo from side to side and the AI will struggle. I agree that AOF2 is very difficult. I think SNK did remedy this in AOF3. Street Fighter III 3rd Strike is very difficult but is geared for expert players, the best of the best.

[@psymagearcade]

Interesting to know about SFII CE. And yeah, AOF3's AI is definitely toned down compared to AOF2, kind of chill in comparison.

[@bwilson774]

I can't really complain so much about old school playformers since those are working with limited recourses. In modern games though like shooters and open world sand boxes, your enemies should fight smarter, be more aware of your actions and try to use teamwork tactics to flank and surround you. Unless it's a zombie game, enemies should almost never become a damage sponge on hard mode.

[@Josep_Hernandez_Lujan]

I like how Doom did it. Higher difficulty added more monsters and replaced some easier ones with harder ones. Making it both harder (because there's more enemies) and more fun (because there's more enemies to shoot) It doesn't make them bulletsponges.

[@psymagearcade]

That's a great way to do it. Also, replacing the easier enemies is what Super Mario Bros did with its hidden Hard Mode. They replaced the Goombas with Buzzy Beetles. It works well.

[@Gunner98]

There's this mobile game called Dan The Man which has I think the best hard mode I've ever seen in a game. In addition to increasing the enemies' attack damage, its hard mode replaces the regular enemies in the levels with more scary looking enemies with mechanics different from the regular enemies. For example an enemy which is a regular shotgun enemy in the easy mode can shoot huge fireball like things in hardmode. Some melee enemies become more agile charge towards you faster than easy mode enemies.

[@PikangsFutaba]

Some games got well designed hard modes, but most of them not really, one game that I'm not sure how to qualify it is Axelay, as it's Hard and Super Hard modes (the later can only be played once you beat the game on hard... which is actually loop 3) not only makes enemies resist more (not by much with the normal mobs, but with the bosses really is noticeable) but also encourage players to learn the stage layouts and bullet patterns, making it decently fair (but still...), fighting games I agree, they just input read and you need to rely on cheese to make the AI go wrong, but back in the 80's and 90's there was what I call "must play on hard if you either want to play the full game, get the ending OR get the FULL ending" category (games like NES Double Dragon 2 enters here as said game for example, you cannot play the full game if you're not playing on the hardest mode, other games like SNES Sunset Riders or SNES TMNT Turtles in Time won't allow you to see the ending if you're not playing on the hardest difficulty, and other cases like Mega Man ZX Advent that doesn't show you the full ending if not played on the hardest difficulty... which in the case of said game you have to beat it on normal BEFORE you can pick Expert mode).

[@BillLambert]

I wish I could find it now, but back in the 90s someone had written the "rules of fighting games", which was a long and detailed list of pointers on what should and should not be in a fighting game, with examples for a lot of them. It is probably lost to the ruins of the old internet. It went deep on infinite combos/juggles, unblockable/uncounterable attacks, input reading, SF2 Guile's flash kick that the AI could do without charging, and lots of other ways the computer cheated that a human physically could not do. Killer Instinct and lots of SNK games were lambasted for breaking a lot of these "rules". It was a bit ranty but I'd like to think it informed future game designers to play fair and respect the player's time.

[@psymagearcade]

That sounds like something that would have been on the old Shoryuken forum a long time ago. I'd love to read that if you or someone else could find it.

[@animemugenbox]

I see Rugal and Geese! I click ❤

[@HallsteinI]

Don't get me wrong I loved TES IV and V but turning up the difficulty mode just makes enemies more spongy and in TES V makes them perform execution moves more frequently. It's frustrating and gets a bit tedious. As always with Bethesda games mods fix all of their shortcomings.

[@psymagearcade]

I know other people who got to that point as well with Skyrim, so you're not alone on that one.

[@B3Band]

While you were talking during the intro, the entire time I was thinking, "Yeah like Cool Spot on the Sega Genesis!" Called it haha

[@psymagearcade]

Nice!

[@siegfriedc2332]

Never played it, but that balloon level in the vid was getting me frustrated just watching it.

[@francisgrenouille]

Funny you mention TS2, I played it yesterday and it made me understand why I could never finish it on hard. The fact hard mode enemies can just pop out of cover and instantly deal damage means you have to get lucky that the dice roll will make them miss if you want to succeed, skill is out of the question. I played the PC port from Homefront, having good aim does not even help because even if you line up the AI to shoot them in the head, your reaction time+bullet travel time is enough for you to take damage. I am not sure about that but it looks like the AI has true hitscan weapons whereas your bullets have travel time.

[@psymagearcade]

Interesting. I might have to check out that hidden port of TS2. I figured that mouse look would make it significantly easier.

[@shinsmoke]

I spent my childhood in the 90's as an arcade gamer since I only had a Game Boy and no other consoles. This meant I had to tackle the tough challenges of many arcade games, especially fighting games. Once I figured out the weaknesses of the AI in games like MK2 and SF2, they became pretty easy. However, there were some Neo Geo fighting games, like Samurai Shodown 3 and Karnov's Revenge, that I just couldn't beat. When I finally tried the console versions, I was let down by how much easier they were compared to the arcade experience.

[@psymagearcade]

Interesting. I played arcade games quite a bit growing up, but I still had some consoles at home growing up besides handhelds.

[@Nah_Bohdi]

Onward on Meta VR. The game goes from Mil-Sim to "CPU clock speed reactions", and flaws like bullets come out of the top of their heads but youre come out of your barrel, so they can shoot over things that you cant, and the can turn around and shoot at CPU speeds and as youre dying theyre turning around to look at you, they then point their guns at you as the Game Over screen starts. Its baffling, like they didnt play test the game.

[@petergalicz1665]

I remember Cool spot. That thing is in of it self is a torture let alone in hard mode.

[@jasonrustmann7535]

Hard mode often isn't hard, just annoying. For instance, recently started playing cyberpunk 2077. And the hardest difficulty is just every enemy is a bullet sponge, while they can end you in like two shots, while being snipers with any gun at any range. Making the only really consistent play style to be net running. Stealth doesn't even work that well, as you can only really single shot kill the weakest enemies, which are now far more limited in number.

[@huevonesunltd]

Some games are "Route games" and some are raw skill games and others a combination of both. Route games are the ones that require and expect you to practice each section and memorize stuff, this is very notable in arcade games , beat em ups and a lot NES games. often trivializing the whole game. In some games, its not necessary but trivializes the game to "learn the script" But then there's other games that actually require you to plan out everything and practice sections individually which lately that concept is frowned upon by most players , the concept of trial and error, which is like a genre of difficulty in a way but not necessarily a bad thing, some players enjoy the process of practicing or getting to know these games, every once in a while its good to throw unfair stuff at you, its not okay though when its done all the time combined with rough punishment such as having to do an entire section again just to try again and die in one hit. These days you can get away with really unfair stuff as long as you put a checkpoint right before that, in my opinion its a good thing to once in a while sprinkle the game with unfair stuff rather than making it too predictable always playing fair which is the trend of a lot of games now, to make them all be "simon says". And raw skills games would be games where you cannot "skip" the difficulty by memorizing stuff alone, then there's the combination of both where the game expects and know you will practice the stages so they hit you with hard execution and other tests that assume you have been practicing/routing and these are absolutely not meant to be beaten on a blind run and are usually reserved to the very highest difficulty level, bullet hells are notable for this. I would go on and on but there's differnt kinds of skills that some games tests, trial and error games in particular are "knowledge check" kind of games, other test reactions, situational awareness, patience, execution,timing, memory, particular skills or fundamentals in X genre, resource management, spacing,logic , etc. its just that some "checks" are more frowned upon than others and gamers typically don't want to put up with games where the knowledge check (or rather memorization, similar but not quite the same) part is absolutely required rather than suggested, most games today all they test is reactions and timing.

[@psymagearcade]

I actually agree with all that, but I wasn't really targeting those kind of games with this video. I've done plenty of traditional and bullet hell shmup 1CCs (my channel has a lot of them BTW) so I'm familiar with the high level of execution that they expect from players, since you brought them up. I was referring mostly to games that aren't so well-designed.

[@Nixkrude79]

Hard difficulty on both WWF Wrestlemania 2000 and No Mercy was a different type of difficulty

[@NisseDood]

Lots of rpgs also do terrible hard modes because they just stat bloat everything forcing more grinding. Worst is when they force game completion to unlock hardest difficulty in a game that already isnt that hard. Im looking at you Yakuza.

[@psymagearcade]

The latter doesn't bother me as much as the stat bloat because you should usually be familiar with the game before playing on the highest difficulty anyway, so I get the logic of having players unlock an even harder difficulty.

[@huevonesunltd]

These days its very rare for an RPG to actually require to grind even on hard mode, and in some cases theres a very hard mode you unlock which is meant to be played on a NG+ savefile. When an RPG actually requires you to grind then we are talking about a really garbage kind of game or a very early RPG suuch as Dragon Quest and many other early famicom RPGs, but for the most part it is either a knowledge issue, skill issue or both. In modern games though, very rare you must grind unless we are talking about a pay to win kind of game, other than thats its players just being bad at the game

[@NisseDood]

Nioh 2 does harder difficulties right. Every difficuly adds something new like new moves for special enemies and other stuff. Yes it also raises their stats but every difficulty also adds stronger gear.

[@henseltbrumbleburg3752]

Yeah a good challenge will force you to respect the world. Everytime I mod skyrim I use a damage modifier. Enemies go down just as easily as I do. It makes the game more tense and I have to take advantage of all the systems I can. It was awesome, I've never cared for alchemy, but became very familiar when I cranked the challenge up. Exploring dungeons became a thought again. "Should I go in? i'm pretty low on supplies and the next town is a while away." A thought I'd never have with vanilla. Same with Mertro, I played on regular mode and found it quite boring, as soon as I put it on ranger difficulty I became so much more engaged, because it was balanced well.

[@bobroberts2581]

Hot take: Fallout 4 does amazing in that while is does do HPSponge mechanics, it also rewards you with more Unique Weapons to let you burn/melt/explode enemies in new crazy way. Through on Survival Mode pushing you to either adopt the settlement mechanic or be dutiful on hitting supermarkets and the like to ensure you have enough food, medicines, and drinkable water.

[@psymagearcade]

That doesn't sound bad because at least the game gives you appropriate options and mechanics to compensate for it.

[@destinyserrano2409]

This video is right about everything

[@EnilionVeno]

I remember playing warcraft 3 on hard, and finding out enemy has unlimited gold in mines, lost interest, i think i never played it after that, as i was past normal. Game is unfair, or exceedingly stressfull, i quit.

[@azymorath]

I think separate the cases of difficulty between home games and arcade games, since for the latter there is the mindest of turning the game unfair for the sake of having a "coin muncher" and thus more profitable.

[@maximos905]

Those games probably could have made even more money by being fair and fun

[@illuminatidad]

Yeah I remember I was practicing a lot with mortal kombat 2 ai and got pretty good at getting through it. Then when I went against an actual human I realized how dumb the ai exploits were and I got clobbered.

[@elwen8525]

I think a good example of hard mode is bioshock. It really keeps you on your toes while not being to frustrating. A hard mode I didn’t like was metal gear rising. I’ve never played a hack and slash like it and some of the levels are really hard to get through if you don’t have the right equipment. And I didn’t even finish the game

[@psymagearcade]

I might have to give Bioshock another shot on Hard Mode instead of on the default settings. That's good to know because I thought it was too easy when I first tried playing it.

[@robertazurine9762]

Probably one of the most egregious examples of the "make the game harder by making the enemies hit harder" trope I can think of belongs to Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. Hero Mode in that games QUADRUPLES damage taken from enemies. It's so bad that even before you clear the first temple, Hyrule is dotted by enemies that can OHKO Link.

[@AnthroArcade]

yeah if you're gonna up damage and/or lower health, do it for everyone. Ghost of Tsushima's Lethal difficulty does this. EVERYONE dies in a few hits -- including you. I couldn't make it past the intro xD

[@nemoisnobody]

I think a GOOD hard mode should push your understanding of the game and challenge your problem solving skills. Not much unlike many of the optional super bosses in the Final Fantasy games.

[@nngnnadas]

shmups are on autoscroll. I didn't play Final soldier, but from the photage it seems they eventually would go offscreen on their own. So making enemies spongier should just give them longer to kill you and accumulate more obstacle (bullets and ships) on screen, and keep the length of the level about the same.

[@psymagearcade]

Technically, you are correct that the stages are the same length in time because of autoscrolling. However, now it takes way longer to kill the smallest of enemies that would go down in one hit in 99% of other shmups, even from this time period and even from one that are a lot harder in other ways like Raiden or the Gradius games. So, now the player now has to take a lot longer to properly route the stage because of stupidity that doesn't exist in most other shmups. Oh, and the bullets would go off screen pretty quickly so the ships would be the obstacles here.

[@danielnam9026]

I learned to play a lot safer and take fewer risky moves in regards to fighting games on hard difficulty. But there’s always the occasional slip ups. I just dislike how certain characters are able to cheese out a fighting game just based on their skill kit. My example would be Noob Saibot on Mortal Kombat Trilogy. I can clear the game on the highest difficulty just using his exploits.

[@Dark_Tesla]

Eyedol from Killer Instinct and Shao Khan from MK2 are among THE WORST input reading BS bosses I’ve ever had the displeasure to fight. And I say this a fighting game savant that regularly enters tournaments. Don’t even get me started on Rugal from KOF, the line “Genocide CUTTER!!!” Will forever traumatize SNK players worldwide.

[@psymagearcade]

Yeah, Shao Khan is pretty bad in MK2, though he gets overshadowed by Kintaro sometimes because Kintaro is also an incredibly annoying boss. MK3 nerfed Shao Khan a little bit. He's quite beatable on the Novice path at least and seems to leave himself vulnerable more often.

[@davidsagitas343]

You have to wonder if some devs create harder difficulties without considering if what they tweak makes the game humanly impossible. Input reading is the most egregious. It ruins every fighting game it's used in. When you learn your opponent isnt adapting or outplaying you, and simply choosing to win because it can, the solution is never to improve your skill, but to find a gap in the cpu logic where you can spam a move and cheese out an unfulfilling victory.

[@psymagearcade]

I think for arcade fighting games, it was pretty deliberate. For other types of problems besides input reading, it's hard to tell. It's possible that the developers behind Final Soldier might have thought it was a good idea at first to make things spongier on higher difficulties but didn't play test it enough and focused more on balancing the game for Normal difficulty.

[@mistahkalean6777]

This is exactly how this new generation plays fighting games. The old generation is so good, the new gen sees them as so sort of online final boss on the hardest difficulty. So instead of learning the techniques they need to learn to win, they find cheesy, non respectable ways to win just to win, like they are playing some kind cpu that reads inputs. So they have no shame in winning with cheap tactics when they feel you were playing on "hard mode" because you are so good.

[@AnthonyFlack]

I think it's usually best to design the game around the hardest difficulty and then scale it back from there. Nobody minds when extra bias is added in the player's favour. M2's recent console ports of old arcade shmups have all included a new "supereasy" mode which makes the games much easier to complete but in ways that don't feel boring. Some techniques they used include reducing the player's hitbox and making the player auto-bomb when hit rather than losing a life.

[@psymagearcade]

Definitely. It makes more sense to have easier difficulties that scale back the challenge than to balance a game for Normal mode and then try to throw in a bunch of gimmicks and flat out bad design choice to make a higher difficulty setting more challenging. Also, M2 does amazing work. It's too bad there aren't more companies like them.

[@davidsentanu7836]

100% agree. I like when games include "easy mode" so that I can play with my daughter. One example would be Yoshi's Woolly World. In that game, you can toggle an option to make Yoshi fly when you hold jump button. Makes the game way easier, but still enjoyable 100%. You just die less. Also the game does not have lives. It's just infinite try, because why not? I paid for the game, let me try as many time I'd like. I still don't get the logic of archaic game design like lives in Mario or Donkey Kong games. Just make the game miserable to play for little kids. What was the purpose? It feels nice when game developers thought of us, casual gamers, parents and kids, or maybe handicapped gamers, etc. Design the game for the hardest playable difficulty, then reduce / add helper features for non-hardcore gamers. Great game design philosophy right there.

[@chamchamtrigger]

Gradius 3

[@Hexxecutioner]

Many hard modes don't make the game more challenging. ...they just make it take longer. You're still using the same tactics to hit the enemy, its just that maybe you have to hit them 8 or 12 times instead of 4.

[@rulue8610]

In some games, it's too easy even in hard mode which makes the player becomes boring. Hard mode supposedly to be challenging.

[@psymagearcade]

That is also true sometimes. I experienced this when I played Dimension Tripper Nepture: Top Nep earlier this year. The hard mode in that game is still a cakewalk.

[@peposo7]

Give examples, please.

[@Kenshiro3rd]

Git Gud Scrub... j/k Great vid!

[@melizarainstormz2588]

Too many games mix up "hard" and "handicap".

[@meswil]

personally i mis snk boss syndrome too bad i don't think it'll return.

[@blazinglazers69]

Love that Birth of A New Day vaporwave soundtrack in the background. Good taste. Another pet peeve of mine is poorly implemented difficulty spikes. Like the final boss in Cave Story. The game is mostly very chill throughout and then the last boss is basically a bullet hell. I'm playing that game to take a break from hardcore stuff, so it's unwelcome when the difficulty spikes so high and randomly like that. Or when you're forced to watch a cutscene during a hard part your trying to grind. MushiFutari is guilty of this when practicing the final boss and so was Blasphemous 2. That final boss kills you so quickly if you don't know what to do that it's hard to even experiment to get good, and EVERY TIME you try again you have to listen to an increasingly lame and monotonous speech. I literally just shook my head and dropped it at the very end. I'm not dealing with that crap. Plenty of other better designed games to play.

[@psymagearcade]

I also don't like it when games get randomly super difficult for the last boss when the game has been a cakewalk otherwise. Super Galaxy Squadron EX Turbo does this. And yeah, forced cutscenes are not great either. Thank you for watching and thanks for the compliment on the music choices! I do like vaporwave so you can expect more of it in the background for future videos!

[@lpfan4491]

I personally found Cave Story pretty challenging throughout, so the final few bosses did not exactly spook me.

[@PrimevalDemon]

Man, Shao is pathetically easy in like every game he has like 3 attacks and hyper armor. Just don't spam and hold quarter back and you will annihilate him every time

[@psymagearcade]

MK3/UMK3 Shao Khan is much easier than MK2 Shao Khan, especially if you go on the Novice ladder.

[@bennyuchiha8501]

"the wrong type of hard" hmmnm

[@psymagearcade]

Yeah, I definitely set myself up for that one

[@gregaberor]

If higher difficulty is hard it's not for you. We dont need the gaming market to cater to less skilled players.

[@tubapower94]

Don’t miss the point stroking your own ego.

[@Solflufficorns]

did you watch the video or just get offended and make a comment?

[@psymagearcade]

You would be surprised by how many people just read the title, look at the thumbnail, and then decide to leave a comment without actually watching the video at all. I had somebody admit recently in a comment on a previous video that they did not watch the video and then precede to ask me what the video is about.

[@gregaberor]

@@psymagearcade I watched about a third of the video but got extremely bored.