Games that were ruined by their difficulty

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Games that were ruined by their difficulty

Postby S4Blade » Tue Apr 22, '14, 3:56 pm

What are some games that you can think of that are ruined by their difficulty. It can be that the games are either too hard, or too easy.

I can't really think of any good examples, but the closest thing I can think of would be Etrian Odyssey for the DS. It was a game that I enjoyed playing, but the endless grinding to level up made me quit the game pretty early on. I never played another Etrian Odyssey game after that.

I also found the first 2 God of War games and the 2 PSP God of War games to be a bit too easy on the default difficulty settings. I know you can play them on harder difficulty modes, but I never got around to doing that. I don't think it ruined the games, I still had a lot of fun playing them, but I felt kind of overpowered when fighting most of the enemies.

That's all I can think of for now.
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Re: Games that were ruined by their difficulty

Postby Bragatyr » Tue Apr 22, '14, 5:38 pm

Battletoads is a good, well-known example of a game that is beloved by just about everyone in terms of the presentation and the mechanics, but dreaded by the general gaming populace (myself included) because it's insanely difficult without intense familiarity with the levels.
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Re: Games that were ruined by their difficulty

Postby R-90-2 » Tue Apr 22, '14, 8:42 pm

I'd say that my picks for ruined by difficulty would go to the games that had their mechanics tweaked towards higher difficulty for Western release in ways that had little forethought as to the ramifications of changing the numbers.

For example, the Japanese version of Adventures of Bayou Billy was a challenging but still reasonable game, but the American release halved the player's health, doubled the health of enemies, and made the driving stages into things that would inflict great hardship even on veteran Rad Racer players, throwing the game's intended balance and flow way, way out of whack.

The classic Ninja Gaiden games were always fairly difficult, but the overseas release of NG3 didn't do the series any favors by effectively halving the player's health, removing mid-level checkpoints, as well as completely cutting out the game's password system.

The crown for this would have to go to 7th Saga, where the player's character stat gains were reduced, but not the gains for the character's rival, so if the player didn't already have intimate knowledge of how much to grind and where to do it (and because of the lower stat gains, the temptation to grind more was far more present), it was very, very easy to make the game completely unwinnable by accident.
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Re: Games that were ruined by their difficulty

Postby myau56 » Tue Apr 22, '14, 8:52 pm

Ah I agree with Etrian Odyssey ! The first one was great but too difficult : a real nightmare ! I think that the game was great but with that... :( After like you, Vistablade, I've never touched another one ! But recently, I've tried the demo for Etrian Odyssey on 3DS and saw that there was an easy mlode ! So I decided to buy it and this game is great ! The difficulty is average and that is much more funny :)
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Re: Games that were ruined by their difficulty

Postby S4Blade » Tue Apr 22, '14, 11:08 pm

Bragatyr wrote:Battletoads is a good, well-known example of a game that is beloved by just about everyone in terms of the presentation and the mechanics, but dreaded by the general gaming populace (myself included) because it's insanely difficult without intense familiarity with the levels.


I have heard that Battletoads is infuriating. Unfortunately I never had a NES growing up. I was blessed with a Sega Master System instead. Hence why I grew up with the Phantasy Star games.
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Re: Games that were ruined by their difficulty

Postby myau56 » Thu Apr 24, '14, 12:23 pm

I've never played battletoad either.. not a NES guy too ! Master System forever here and so it permited me and my two brothers to discover Phantasy Star ! :)
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Re: Games that were ruined by their difficulty

Postby S4Blade » Thu Apr 24, '14, 1:41 pm

myau56 wrote:Ah I agree with Etrian Odyssey ! The first one was great but too difficult : a real nightmare ! I think that the game was great but with that... :( After like you, Vistablade, I've never touched another one ! But recently, I've tried the demo for Etrian Odyssey on 3DS and saw that there was an easy mlode ! So I decided to buy it and this game is great ! The difficulty is average and that is much more funny :)


I'm probably going to pass on the 3DS Etrian Odyssey too. I liked the concept of the original Etrian Odyssey, with being able to mark your map locations and stuff, but the who game style just feels pretty archaic to me now.

If you like that style of gameplay, you may want to check out Demon Gaze for the Vita. It just came out and it's similar to Etrian Odyssey/Class of Heroes. There may be a few other Vita game like this as well, but I don't pay much attention to JRPGs.
Last edited by S4Blade on Thu Apr 24, '14, 1:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Games that were ruined by their difficulty

Postby Wolf Bird » Thu Apr 24, '14, 2:26 pm

I certainly wouldn't say it's totally RUINED by its difficulty. But if there is one thing I have to criticize about Okami, it's the fact that it's just way too easy. Even on my first play through, there was not a single section where I really struggled. Having completed The Last of Us, I've now gone off and read forum threads and articles and such, and from that reading, I hesitate to try the game on the 'Survivor' difficulty level, as it seems it's completely unforgiving. I can appreciate a challenge, but that one just might be a bit much, especially in a game that's more about story. On the other hand, some people do say that survivor really makes you deeply appreciate the post-pandemic world and the struggle Joel and Ellie go through.
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Re: Games that were ruined by their difficulty

Postby tilinelson2 » Thu Apr 24, '14, 3:50 pm

Most of the dungeon crawlers have rather annoying difficulty spikes. I am a fan of the genre, but it is rather common that you are in a map where enemies are rather weak and provide almost no experience, then you go to another place in the map and you simply cannot advance.

Battletoads is ridiculous because it is all very well until you reach that level where only someone who tried the level countless times in order to know it by heart can overcome the challenge. It is that kind of pointless challenge.
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Re: Games that were ruined by their difficulty

Postby myau56 » Thu Apr 24, '14, 9:17 pm

VistaBlade wrote:
I'm probably going to pass on the 3DS Etrian Odyssey too. I liked the concept of the original Etrian Odyssey, with being able to mark your map locations and stuff, but the who game style just feels pretty archaic to me now.

If you like that style of gameplay, you may want to check out Demon Gaze for the Vita. It just came out and it's similar to Etrian Odyssey/Class of Heroes. There may be a few other Vita game like this as well, but I don't pay much attention to JRPGs.


I've just taken a look on Demon gaze and will take another tommorow ! Seems to be a good game and it'll be launched at the end of april here in France :)
Etrian Odyssey on 3DS is a good game ! (not so good as Virtue's Last Reward ;) ) and if you can try the demo, go on ! But maybe I'll not buy the Millenium girl edition...
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