How difficult does a game have to be to ruin it for you?

I recently decided to play through MGS: The Twin Snakes on the maximum hardest difficulty settings, since I've beaten it on almost all the other ones - Extreme Difficulty, No Radar, and the "If you get seen you lose" option. At first I was anticipating an uber-realistic, hardcore experience. Well it's definitely hardcore (you pretty much have to memorize the guards' movement patterns) but it's too frustrating to actually be fun for me; I'm mostly just doing it for... the bragging rights? :| I'm not really sure...

So what about you guys? Do you play through games on the hardest difficulty level the first time you get them? Or do you enjoy being able to beat games with style on the easiest difficulty setting?

Until my cousin came in and helped me, General RAAM on insane almost ruined Gears for me for the longest time. But with 2 player (the game I swear was meant to be coop) he was rather managable. We beat him after like 3 tries considering none of us played the game for like 3 months.

If a game is incredibly difficult off the bat and you cant change that in options, difficult to the point of frustration, then it ruins it.

To be honest, Devil May Cry was not only boring, but incredibly difficult for me, and that's probably why I never got into the series to begin with.

I have a very small patience, and get angry pretty quickly at stupid **** So when a game has me swearing at the television because its so difficult, it isnt worth it for me. Pretty much any game where the only way to beat it is to do the same checkpoint 1500 times to figure out the exact way to do it drives me insane. The exact reason I didnt bother doing the Call of duty games on Veteran difficulty. Thats also probably why I stick to singleplayer JRPGs as my primary genre. Very easy, more about time spent than learning anything. So I guess all in all im a wimp when it comes to games, and I hate losing. Flame me if you will. Clan_Crushbone

If you primarly play games by Square-Enix yes that's true but step into the world of Atlus such as in Etrian Odyessy and Odin Sphere and your head will explode.

[QUOTE="Clan_Crushbone"]I have a very small patience, and get angry pretty quickly at stupid **** So when a game has me swearing at the television because its so difficult, it isnt worth it for me. Pretty much any game where the only way to beat it is to do the same checkpoint 1500 times to figure out the exact way to do it drives me insane. The exact reason I didnt bother doing the Call of duty games on Veteran difficulty. Thats also probably why I stick to singleplayer JRPGs as my primary genre. Very easy, more about time spent than learning anything. So I guess all in all im a wimp when it comes to games, and I hate losing. Flame me if you will. Dencore

If you primarly play games by Square-Enix yes that's true but step into the world of Atlus such as in Etrian Odyessy and Odin Sphere and your head will explode.

I totally agree. I was playing STM Nocturne, and as much as I loved the game, I didn't like the fact that I had to level up for over five hours, and then defeat the boss with one character remaining with low hp left, and around 10 minutes later there was another, even harder boss, which I'll have to level up another 5 hours just to beat. I just gave up.

I have a very small patience, and get angry pretty quickly at stupid **** So when a game has me swearing at the television because its so difficult, it isnt worth it for me. Pretty much any game where the only way to beat it is to do the same checkpoint 1500 times to figure out the exact way to do it drives me insane. The exact reason I didnt bother doing the Call of duty games on Veteran difficulty. Thats also probably why I stick to singleplayer JRPGs as my primary genre. Very easy, more about time spent than learning anything. So I guess all in all im a wimp when it comes to games, and I hate losing. Flame me if you will. Clan_Crushbone

Exactly. I'm of the same mold. JRPGs are rarely frustrating, but when you do get stuck on a boss battle and your not leveled up enough, they're perhaps the most frustrating, since save points are so few and far between.

When the AI is so good they can see you....even when it's literally impossible for it to be vice-versa.

EDIT:Oh, and one-hit kills....with normal enemies. Have mercy.

I'm not too great at games like Odin Sphere but I bought it any ways. The Demon Lord boss pissed me off bad. It took over 10 tries to me to kill him!

I also just bought (today) Ninja Gaiden for Xbox. God almighty! The first boss beat the crap out of me, the second boss beat the **** out of me. The 3rd boss (fat laser guy on zepplin) was easy. But in the city sometimes I can go up against 3 or 4 guys and kill them like I am an expert, round a corner and run into an identical group and have them spank me bad...

Sometimes the AI in Hitman can piss me off since small things can make their patrol patterns erratic.

But no, I have not had a game get so hard I quit playing it for forever. :D

I recently decided to play through MGS: The Twin Snakes on the maximum hardest difficulty settings, since I've beaten it on almost all the other ones - Extreme Difficulty, No Radar, and the "If you get seen you lose" option. At first I was anticipating an uber-realistic, hardcore experience. Well it's definitely hardcore (you pretty much have to memorize the guards' movement patterns) but it's too frustrating to actually be fun for me; I'm mostly just doing it for... the bragging rights? :| I'm not really sure...

So what about you guys? Do you play through games on the hardest difficulty level the first time you get them? Or do you enjoy being able to beat games with style on the easiest difficulty setting?

Funkyhamster

But most of the time I try my games on all difficulties to see if they are fun - most are

I especially loved GOW on God mode, last boss fight - Nice challenge lol, Same with DMC and DMD good fun and a good challenge - the only time I hate games because of difficulty is if they only hard because of poor quality or faulty gameplay that just doesnt work - else I will try the harder difficulties - most FPS I start on Hard because they just aint fun if they are too easy as they tend to be on Normal

It really depends for me. However I do have one golden rule.... I don't ever play games one easy. I always choose normal, unless of course it's a game I feel capable of playing on hard or needs to be on hard to be more challenging. While it may sound out-of-date or small-time, at one point, just being able to beat Kingdom Hearts on normal felt a bit hard, because that was really my first initiation into gaming without the added cushions I had become use to. Up until playing that game, Halo was the only thing I had ever played one every difficulty with expert precision, mostly because playing a game over a dozen times does cause your knowledge of the best ways to use the game mechanisms to your advantage to increase. I also played Ninja Gaiden on normal as well, those being my only choices with just an Xbox at the time.

Since then, do much in part to my newbie excitement from just getting a PS2 and having a whole new consoles worth of games to play I've grown into my gamer shoes. So now I prefer the challenge in a game to be level. I don't mind it being hard, but I don't want it to be destructively frustrating. There is no satisfaction in trying to beat a game that is purposely being cruel and cheating through it's teeth. I want my challenge to be an intelligent one, something with meaning to it, that may be frustrating but doesn't go to thelengths of making suicide seem like a logical option.

It depends on why the game is difficult. If it's just difficult because I suck at it, then I'm likely to keep trying in hopes of improving my mad skillz. But if it's difficult because, say, the game itself is cheating, then I have very little patience with it.

Oh, and I usually play games on whatever the default/normal difficulty is. Then if I enjoyed the game and feel up to challenging myself (or if normal was just too easy), after I've beaten it I'll go back through and do the harder difficulty levels. I only ever use easy if the normal mode is just really, REALLY kicking my ass (which doesn't happen all that often).

When I'm new to a game I play on the normal difficulty. If it's a sequal to a game in a series I'm good at and there aren't many gameplay changes, I have no problem starting on thehard difficulty.

EDIT: I do try to avoid games that I hear are very difficult. When I got RE 4 I didn't know it was gonna be such a challenge. That's part of the reason why I stopped playing the game near the end and didin't finish. I almost feels like it makes me less of a gamer.:(

So what about you guys? Do you play through games on the hardest difficulty level the first time you get them? Or do you enjoy being able to beat games with style on the easiest difficulty setting?

Funkyhamster

I recently decided to play through MGS: The Twin Snakes on the maximum hardest difficulty settings, since I've beaten it on almost all the other ones - Extreme Difficulty, No Radar, and the "If you get seen you lose" option. At first I was anticipating an uber-realistic, hardcore experience. Well it's definitely hardcore (you pretty much have to memorize the guards' movement patterns) but it's too frustrating to actually be fun for me; I'm mostly just doing it for... the bragging rights? :| I'm not really sure...

So what about you guys? Do you play through games on the hardest difficulty level the first time you get them? Or do you enjoy being able to beat games with style on the easiest difficulty setting?

Funkyhamster

It's not about how difficult a game is. It's about how a game is difficult.

If that difficulty comes from raw AI quality or design, it can be the hardest game of all time and I'll still like it.

If that difficulty comes from a poor frame rate or bad game design, that's a big problem.