What is the appeal of difficulty games?

Completing something challenging feels good.

>>3662027
Difficulty tends to somehow compensate for game length

Games back then were pretty damn short

Side note: ninja gaiden on turbografx is easier than the nes original

>>3662027

Beating them feels more rewarding. That, and it's a cheap way to pad out the length of an otherwise short game.

There's no point in learning and mastering something that you can just tank through

Better question: What is the appeal of easy games?

>>3662027
You struggle and fight against every little bit of a level, but eventually you get so good that you can fly through it with ease (or at least mild competence.)

It's hard to get right though. Some games are pure bullshit.

>>3662027
there is more replay value when the cartridge memory was so small.

that was just the way they made them back then. arcade games were hard to suck quarters. people wanted the arcade experience on the home console.
However, I have not played a ninja game that wasn't hard. I think its part of the genre, like most shooters are very hard.

>>3662078
>However, I have not played a ninja game that wasn't hard
Shinobi 3 is ezpz

>>3662078

Shinobi III is one of my favorite games of all time but barring the final boss it's pretty fucking easy.

And even the final boss can be cheeses really hard with Mijin if you've stocked up lives. Which you probably have, because, again, easy game.

>>3662027
High difficulty was the go-to in older games to pad the lack of content.

Either that or the games were made by actual gamers who while developing them ramped up the difficulty because because they themselves found it "too easy".

What's the appeal of this?

Fuck if I know, beating a frustrating game never "gave me a sense of accomplishment" always just pissed me off.

>>3662092

Because you can't actually beat any

That was mean, I'm sorry

>kids these days play artificial difficulty bullshit games
>but will whine and bitch about older games with actual doable difficulty
Proof that modern gamers aren't truly good at games, they'll just plow through some bullshit that takes luck to beat and call themselves good.

>>3662095

Oh fuck off

>>3662093
Go beat The Mysterious Murasame Castle and then come back and talk to me.

Fag

>>3662097
Kids sure do get mad when I call them on their fucking nugaming bullshit.

>>3662118

If you weren't a shitposter you'd know what the term artificial difficulty meant, but you're from /v/ so you think it means "REALLY HARD BOO HOO"

>>3662121
It means modern games with fucking stupid difficulty based on luck or other bullshit instead of skill, you fucking child.

Let me know when you get tired of embarrassing yourself and become interested in actually rejecting modern gaming -- hell, gaming over the last 20 years or so -- because it's pretty much all fucking garbage.

>>3662141
Done replying to your dumb ass. Go back now.
>>>/v/

>>3662148
Are you seriously this mad at the truth?

Jesus fuck, no wonder gaming today sucks shit. All you fucking children are cranky little shits that can't even think.

Let me know in about 20 years when you fucking grow up -- and yeah, it'll probably take you that long -- how fucking sorry you are and how right I was. Until then, please stop being a gamer and go watch braindead TV and movies instead, because I KNOW that's what you fucking kid "gamers" really want, since 99.999999999% of modern "games" are more movies than games.

>>3662152
m8 you need to go back to /v/. there's still good games being made.

>>3662156
If its not retro I dont want to play it.

>>3662221
boy you must be upset at the arbitrary definition of /vr/'s retro. or probably not since you sound like a hipster

>>3662221
>>3662274
Anons, please, settle down, you're both gigantic fucking faggots holy shit SHUT UP

>>3662027
As for you, the answer is clearly masochism.

>>3662027
the perfect difficulty until late levels, after that it goes into nightmare mode and i need a half-year break before giving it another try and hopefuly pulling it off by some miracle.

>>3662027
i like to pretend i like hard games but i really don't and they are extremely frustrating and in fact unfun, cannot even play more than an hour at a time of any "hard" game. i am certain most people are also people pretending to like them

>>3662027
It's fun to get better and better at it with practice, overcoming what you couldn't before, progressing toward mastery. The save data is inside yourself.

>>3662343

That's called projection, anon.

>>3662027
Feeling of accomplishment.
>>3662072
Get to just cruise through and enjoy the story/gameplay without much effort.

Nothing wrong with liking both.

>>3662027
Your answer lies in your question

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Sometimes it was a method to increase game playing time, or done to coerce people to buy the game instead of constantly rent, maybe improve its metrics on reviews (I remember old magazines would even give "difficulty" a rating, instead of calling it "replayability" so a game's score can have great graphics, sound, controls, fun factor, but a low difficulty can ruin its looks in the magazine's system) ... I also heard stories where the games testers got very good at the game, given they play it a lot in all manner of ways, that the game was adjusted for that small sample of players, without accounting for the skills/memory they have attained for the game ...


I will admit, I felt that amazing rush when I beat Thunderforce 4. I kept playing, got further and further. One day, on a very poor run (worth resetting due to stupid deaths early), I just said "fuck it" and pushed forward, and surprisingly beat the game. It is possible, and I sort of felt the game readjusts its difficulty in the background, and I wouldn't be surprised if it did, but still upon completion it was fist pump worthy. I know TF4 isn't the hardest shooting game around, but that sense of accomplishment is real.


>>3662559
I too enjoy easy, fair, and difficult games. To me, it just depends on how successfully the designers want to tailor the intended experience.