rcarter2 : Your entire first paragraph is exactly correct.  Dying used to be the end of things.  You get three lives, you can earn more and you lose some but there is an extremely finite resource in the game play.  If you die, that's it.  No save points, no timely health boosts before big battles.  It was us and our wits vs the NES and even the SNES.  

Even games with saves, like Dragon Warrior, punished you very aggressively if you died.  You would lose half the gold you saved and back than they didn't hand it out like they do Gil in Final Fantasy and so on.  

Games should be hard.  Having things get a little tougher and tougher but you know you're going to win doesn't make them exciting.  I like playing sports games because there's no promise of victory if I turn the settings up.

Losing is good for the soul.  I don't think kids learn to lose the way we had to deal with the frustration back in the day.  Everyone wins now.  It's too bad.

I can definitely see what you mean, but it all depends on the type of "hard". For example, throwing 8,000,000 enemies at you in one millisecond. That's not hard or challenging. It's cheap and unfair. However, i do agree that games with balanced difficulty are more engaging.

I have to agree, really. I LOVE it when a game gives me h-e double hockey sticks. (Sorry if that broke one of the rules, didn't mean to if it did.) I feel like it makes it more fun. I can't put my finger on it, other than when I beat it, I feel like I actually accomplished something, instead of the game just HANDING me a reward. I feel like I earned it. A side note, it doesn't hurt that it prolongs the game, considering how many times you have to do a stage, fight, or puzzle. It also gives me room to improve, which I love. I'll admit it, I do enjoy easy games sometimes. I mean, if you come home after a long day, you don't want to have your r-wing shot down time after time. You more so just want to relax, beat some stuff up, or at least make that last jump.

I'm a little effy on hard games, now I do like a good challenge. But if that challenge has me losing repeatedly then I will quit. I like a game that difficult but at the same time fair and it has you on your toes. It feels fair and not to mention it deals with skill and your ability to react fast enough. I think my first hard boss was grundy in banjo kazooie  I lost plenty of times but it wasn't unreasonably difficult or hard. And as time went by I picked up on the strategy. Even the last boss for kingdom hearts was difficult for me but it was still good nonetheless.

Sword legion : Would you say you are a fan of these old-school hard games?

Battletoads 
Chakan the forever man
Slaughter Sport (shudder)

I can see the appeal in difficult video games . I enjoy a nice hard game if the game itself is fair . I do not wish to face against impossible odds and find myself failing every time I try a go at anything . I like being able to be challenged though , I do not want my victory handed to me without any actual effort made on my part . I like being able to see the strategy and make my effort to reach the goal . An easy game just does not get the job done , what's the point in playing if it is so easy to win at it . The same can be said for hard games, what is the point in playing if I know I will have to have all the odds in my favor and count my lucky stars at a chance at getting through . There is a nice medium, a nice touch of using skill and that makes a game or breaks it .

endings :

No, I have not tried those games.

The ones that I remember are Mario Bros, 1, 2, and 3, Zelda II (the most actually)


Zelda II was probably the best retro game that I have ever played. It could have been better, but I really wish more games used it's formula.

Fast, side scrolling sword play action where you always have to be on your guard.

A large overworld with unforgiving enemies.

Good music.

And the introduction of Dark Link. Best Final Boss in a Zelda Game ever.


All other Zelda's seem a bit boring compared to this one. But this one rocks.

Sword legion : I totally agree with you. I love a challenge. But it also better be an exciting challenge like metroid or something and not a hard game that I feel is dull. Those kinds of games frustrate me a lot! I enjoy a challenge and have been known to stay at a game until I perfect it. I really like the Megaman series because it is so difficult for me right now. Mario Kart is another one. Sometimes, it can be so tough, it seems unfair. But it always keeps me coming back. Geometry Wars Galaxies is another one that I like. It can be extremely tough to get a high score sometimes, and the action is extremely fast paced. My all time favorite though has to be the hard mode of Metroid Other M. Before you say anything. You are required to play through the game with 99 units of energy and 10 missiles. No extra upgrades. No nothing! You will get the necessary equipment to access the entire game, but that is all. That took a lot of work to beat bosses like nightmare and ridley with 99 energy!

While I do love challenging myself in video games, I don't enjoy games that are just too hard. Usually when I play a game I'll start on the easiest setting, then make it more difficult as the game goes on and I get used to it. But I've played some games where they're ridiculous right from the start and you spend more time waiting for the game to reload because you died, than actually playing the game. Games like that, I don't enjoy at all. It just sucks the fun right out of playing them for me. 

I think that video games should have both easy games and hard games. I,for the most part, enjoy my calming easy games as well as the tough ones that make me want to pull my hair. It's all about the mood of the day and the situation that's being presented to you. Which games you play one day depend on what happens to you and how you feel on that day.. I have when games are unfair; difficulty is different than unfairness in video games and some games just don't give us true difficulty, just a bunch of unfair situations in which only a miracle can save you.

Game's need a way to adjust the difficulty level to meet our level of experience. I took this into account when developing Bella's Mansion, and put something in that was not seen in ANY other RPG Maker Survival Horror game: A difficulty select upon starting up the game. Easy mode is... well... easy, Normal mode has almost twice as many enemies running around to ramp up the challenge, and Hard mode has almost three times as many monsters running around, PLUS it removes all the usual save points, limiting you to about 3 saves ( after certain cut-scenes )! YIKES! If THAT isn't difficult, I don't know what is! At least you get something awesome at the end of the game for beating it on Hard mode...

I think the hardest game I've ever played was Metroid Prime on Hard mode. Holy cow, that game was tough! And people are saying Prime 3: Corruption is HARDER!? Sheesh, going a little overboard with the difficulty much, Nintendo?

Either way, I feel all games should have an option to change the difficulty level to meet our level of gaming. Not all games feature this, which is sad, cause after finishing Wario World %100, I kind of wanted to go back, dial up the difficulty, and try it again. And man, was I let down. And Wario World was one of THE very first games I had for my GameCube ( alongside Metroid Prime ), so what the heck? It's pretty simple to put in a difficulty mode select, I do that all the time! In fact, as soon as Felix The Cat 2 resumes active development, I'm going to put in a difficulty select into IT as well! Tartar sauce, this is a very simple system they're forgetting to do.

If you agree with me that all games should have a way to change the difficulty, well, more power to you.

I love games that just try to destroy from the get go, like the Souls games.  They offer a good challenge and most of the time you can have fun even if you are bad (unless you have anger issues, in which case don't throw your controller out of frustration, I tried and broke multiple controllers.) If you die you just gotta get back up there and try again, maybe learn the enemies patterns and be able to tell when it is going to use which attack.  The Souls games have tons of replay ability, from just changing your starting gift or changing the class entirely or just playing a different way, like without a shield and just dodging everything.  They can be beaten if you try hard enough and if you still can beat anything, then just get involved in some jolly cooperation!

I agree, but sometimes, at least in my opinion that you just need a mind numbingly dumb game every once in a while (not saying all FPS are like this) but every once in a while a brainless first person shooter is amazing, especially after a hard/stressful day at work or school. 

personally I think games should have a good challenge, but I hate it when those challenges are overly frustrating. After playing Dark Souls for some time I found myself not filled with anger but not caring and drained of any joy I would have for the game.

I am on the fence about this one. I guess it would depend on my mood for the type of game I want to play when I settle down to play. If I am anxious, mad, feeling aggressive, etc.. Then I want a game like you have said SwordLegion . I want a faced paced, in your face, dares you to beat it . You know games like Ninja Gaiden, Maximo, Battletoads, Contra, etc....
If I am in a good relaxed mood then I want more of a soft story driven game. Something I can take my time playing and thoroughly enjoy. You know something like Final Fantasy ( take your pick ), Dragon Age, Wizardry, Phantasy Star, etc...
 

It really looks at what game you play because some games that are hardare the fames that are the best and other games that are too hard are the worse game.So you really can't say that all hard games are great and addicting. If the game has like a fair bit of callenge then it will make dor a great game, it can't be too hard or it will be a bad game.

I agree with what you're saying. I definitely like hard games too; they can make the world around you seem much more alive and threatening. However, I don't think all games have to be hard. Some games that are more narrative-focused might want to be a bit easier, for the sake of story progression and flow.

I don't know how I feel on the topic, to be honest. On one hand I'm inclined to agree, but on the other hand I can't say I do.  I mean... I'm TERRIBLE at video games, so even games that everyone considers easy, I likely have to strive through.  I therefore need to play easier games to have fun, but I don't like games to be TOO easy. That's just boring.  (As probably the worst example ever... I like Minecraft because it's easy, but if I play it on creative mode, I'd never enjoy it because there is no risk.)

I guess I kind of view this with the same eyes I do test making / taking.  I want to challenge my kids so that I can see they are growing.  Thus, I like to give them tasks or prompts that are a little difficult. If I kept everything easy-peasy, they'd likely never learn anything, and they'd expect to goof off in my class every day.  That being said.... if I were to make tests TOO challenging, kids would be so disheartened that they'd never even try. They'd end up feeling bad, rather than gaining anything from the experience.

i agree that hard game are better but try harder to pass that game u played in a hard mode