... making it ungodly difficult would crush sales, and gaming as a whole. With the improvement of hardware and software over the generations, developers no longer need to make a game stupidly hard to artificially increase the game length. There's a huge difference between being hard, and being cheap. Many retro games were cheap.
From what I remember, some of the cheapest parts of past games is getting hit by a medusa head in Castlevania, or getting hit by an eagle in Ninja Gaiden NES, both resulting in you getting pushed off a platform and die (even with all your energy). Is that what you mean?
It pissed me of when I was a kid also. But everyone whent through the same challenges. While you might get frustrated by it, others (who went through the same challenges) delt with it and beat the game. When I play Castlevania and Ninja Gaiden NES I never get hurt by Medusas and eagles anymore, therefore it's not that cheap if the deaths can be avoided.
To me, cheap is when you're getting hit by bullets in a FPS, and because a FPS prevents you from seeing your avatar, you cannot dodge the bullets very well, you can't even see them. Now that's cheap.
Atleast a 2d platformer is more precise for gameplay, it might not be more immersive, but neither is chess (and chess is one of the best games ever made IMHO, it didn't need realistic graphics).
As for sales, I'm not asking that non gamers force themselves to play hard games. Let Activision make their crap.
But Jonathan Blow who was more in the dirt when he invested 300k of his own money, ended up taking a risk by making a difficult game with Braid. And it succeeded. That's honorable, and to be admired. And he hates the state of games today, and his way of thinking made him a millionaire. Don't think that there's only one way to succeed in life. If everyone makes easy games, those that make a hard game like Demon's Souls will stand out more, which is what you need in a saturated market.
But my views are not about pocketing others with money, I'm quite aware why people sell-out. I'm just pointing out that selling-out sucks for a gamer like me.
I'm surprised at all the apologists who defend selling-out.
But I say: If the experience goes through your mind easily, it will be forgotten easily. In other words, I never forget the hard games, they stay with me. Easy come, easy go.
And why with all the 2d games made over the last 8 years have we never gotten a game that compares to Mario 3 and Mario World? I think it's very doable. There's no excuse for the hiatus.
If the game doesn't challenge anyone, and everyone finishes the game, what do you prove to yourself in finishing it? It no longer is an accomplishment.
Although I have to admit, Ninja Gaiden NES is very cheap when you die at the last boss and it brings you all the way to the beginning of the stage. That was a bad idea.
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