T
here are many games out there today that hold your hand and protect you all the way through the game. They make sure that even if a section of the game is hard you can still beat it. These games are designed to be accessible. This design can be found in the form of scalable difficulty to hints that pop up the longer you take to complete a puzzle. However, not all games today are like this, in fact some of these games are actually designed to kick the crap out of the player. These games take pride in being called tough and there is something about that I find thrilling.
From the second you start a game like Monster Hunter or Dark Souls, you are in trouble. These games don’t care about you. In fact, they take pleasure in watching you die. These games are hard, but not impossible. That is part of the thrill. Most of these games give the player, skilled enough to notice, the ability to win. It could be a noise the monster makes, or the body position of the monster, or something else that tells me what the enemy is about to do, and if I notice it I can dodge or block the attack and used it to my advantage. Thanks to this level of detail I can beat that level or that boss and I get a sense of accomplishment that I don’t find in any other game. Additionally, most games will reward you which makes the victory even more sweeter. In Monster Hunter, killing the boss lets you skin them to get their hid and other body parts which can be used to make new armor and weapons. In Dark Souls, if you kill a boss it will drop loot and souls, which can be used to upgrade your character.
Although these games require a lot of time to get used to, I still love them and the feeling of satisfaction I get from each one. The thrill makes me come back for more leading to me spending way to long playing each game. Monster Hunter Tri, for instance, had me hooked for around 200 hours and I expect to spend around that amount of time if not more in Monster Hunter 4. These games don’t care about you, they care about your skill which alone sets them apart from many games out there.
So what do you think of games like Monster Hunter and Dark souls? Which one is your favorite and why?
Pictures from
http://monsterhunter.wikia.com/wiki/File:Lagiacrus_motivational_by_themacronian-d390rbv.jpg — Lagiacrus picture, I edited the original picture just to showcase the Lagiacrus more
I have not played any of the games in the Dark Soul series but I have played some games in the Monster Hunter Series, which I find really enjoyable. For some odd reason I find myself getting hooked on these types of games. Just like you said these types of games are difficult and do not care how many times you die. The developers of games like Monster Hunters know just the right amount of frustration to give the players to keep them hooked. Too much and the player will be overly frustrated and will not want to continuing playing. If too little then the game is too easy and boring for the player to develop some type of experience from the game. I find that games like Monster Hunter to be really rewarding. After I complete a bounty or defeat a boss after numerous attempts, really rewarding because of the looting systems these games have in place. Getting new materials and resources to upgrade my character making him strong, which then allows me to take on the next boss and/or bounty. There is just something about not knowing what item/materials you will get from a loot drop; its just adds to the excitement and the thrill.
Dark Souls and Monster Hunter are my two favorite games. I remember when I first got my hands on Demon Souls and how I would get so frustrated that I could not progress. I can see how this would keep certain gamers away and it could be argued that this is bad game design. However, for people like me who turn the frustration into a source of determination and are motivated to beat these challenges, these types of games are gold. Unfortunately, I can’t think of many other games like this except for Volgarr the Viking — Which I highly recommend that everyone checks it out. I believe that the market for these types of games are slowly increasing, but it is still somewhat untapped. Perhaps we will see some more of these games in 2015, but the world may not be ready for them yet
Dark souls is one of my favorite games of all time. I think that it was very well designed for multiple reasons. At first you would think playing the same hard thing over and over again would be awful and stressful (at least I thought that way), but after playing it I found the souls and recovery mechanics were extremely well designed and kept me interested. Since you drop all your souls (money and exp in one unit) and humanity when you die at the spot of your death, you are given one chance to get it back. Thus, even though you die a bunch, you can still have continual progress. You naturally level up if you play a hard section over and over again making it easier each time not only with player skill but with character abilities. The combat in dark souls felt *heavy*. It felt like I was actually wearing a full suit of metal armor wielding a giant sword instead of most games where you run and walk around like these things weigh nothing. These design aspects and a whole lot more are why I found dark souls so great
I find it interesting that you like it when games kick your ass and make you restart all of your work. For people like myself, that is the last thing I want in a game. The most demotivating thing I find in games is repeating the same thing twice. I like to plan everything out before I go into a tough mission and I love it when the game I’m playing rewards me for my strategy. I guess it is a difference of taste in games and that’s why we have so many different types of games =)