Should games lose points for "being too hard"?

I feel like "being too hard" is too subjective of a criticism. For example, in last year's Wonderful 101 review, GS gave the game a 4/10. But people who are fans of the game think more highly of the game and are ok with its faults. It's kind of like giving a Dark Souls game a lower score because it's challenging. But isn't that what the genre is about? I could say "being too hard" being a problem if it's just unreasonable and ridiculous or just plain fault.

How about you, SW? Should games lose points for "being too hard"?

If you criticize a game for being too hard you shouldn't be reviewing games.

I hate when journalist and gamers complain about games being too hard, and expect “easy mode” to be standard in games. Why should a developer compromise their vision just so you can feel good about yourself while playing a game? The entitlement in this hobby is getting out of control.

What does it matter. Returnal looks great. Just enjoy it regardless of what the reviewer say.

Only my opinion of the site or the reviewer will be losing points when i see them bitch about game difficulties. Can't take a reviewer seriously if he/she is crying about difficulties in video games while making 100k a year playing video games from home.

Depends if it supposed to cater to the masses I suppose.

This!

Can't understand why anyone would want to rush through a game without being challenged. If I'm playing a game with difficulty levels and the one I'm on is too easy I always crank it up.

People are crying over games costing $70 now yet complain when the game kicks their ass. They don't want to get their money's worth, they want a participation trophy.

Is the game difficult within reason?

Poor game design can lead to a more difficult game and, poor game design should be penalized.

Ex.

Not being able to make a jump because you're one pixel too far is not within reason.

Not being able to dodge an attack because an enemy shift its animation halfway through an attack is not within reason.

Not being able to beat a boss because you were never told about health upgrades is not within reason.

Yup, exactly what i've been saying for a long time. If you can't deal with NORMAL MODE, you're incapable of doing your job.

it shouldnt lose points if its too hard as long as the mechanics is very fair. take games like dark souls, most of the time, its hard if you didnt play the game based on how its intended to be played. but if the bosses or enemies just blindly shooting laser beams at you nonstop and doesnt give the player chance to recover, it warrant a point imo.

They shouldn't lose points, but it's a necessary thing to measure and made known. Some of us play games to relax, and while I do consider games in the vein of the soulsborne genre, roguelikes/lites, and so on to be great, they're not for me and I would like to know that.

Reviews exist to inform customers, not stroke your ego so you can brag about your favorite products like a corporate sycophant. With that said, reviews should be fair and if the game being reviewed comes from a franchise or sub-genre of game known for being difficult, then that should be taken into context.

An exception should be make for games that are difficult due to fundamental issues. If enemies are absurdly unbalanced, there are broken game mechanics, or it appears the developer made the game artificially difficult just to extend the amount of time you'd play it....then I might take some points away.

Game difficulty should be a merit considered in game critique, yes.

A game that's hard just for the sake of hard, or because the game is cheap or broken in ways that makes it more difficult to play (not to the fault of the gamer): should be downgraded.

A game that's hard in all intents of being hard through fair challenge and reward: games should be rewarded for having good difficulty design.

Yes! It is a review. If the reviewer believes the game is too hard then their overall experience would be negative. This reviewer experience would not be unique to them but other players would feel the same. It is the responsibility of the person reading the review to determine if the difficulty that the reviewer is talking about is on same level or greater or lesser than theirs.

You’d be surprised by what they make. If any of them are pulling 6 figures, which would be very few, they live in the Bay Area where that is actually peanuts.

That is objectively a dumb statement.

Difficulty in games really need to be merited not by whether or not you can beat the last boss, but rather if the game is in all fairness providing you with all the tools needed to be successful.

There is such a thing as a game being too hard, not by design and creative choice but because the game was poorly designed in the favor of the player.

We need to be able to distinguish difficulty in games by the genuine intention of their design and its execution over the ones that are difficult over its own flaws.

Okay

@wandering_halls: sounds like an opinion to me.. ya know, what reviews are.

Difficulty is pretty subjective really. But to answer the question, overall, no, I don't think a game should be penalized for it. Sekiro, for example, was just intolerable for me because of the difficulty. But that doesn't mean it's not a great game simply because I don't care for it.

What can I say. I'm a young member of the old guard.

No, because high difficulty is a design choice, not a flaw within the game itself. A review is an analisis of a game's objetive functionality on the execution of it concepts, deducting points on game because its hard it's only valid when that difficulty comes from bad implementation of it's game mechanics like having camera problems, bad hit detection, enemies that skip frames. etc.

No game developer is obligated under any circumstance to be "inclusive" wheh it comes to skill related stuff. Different games for different tastes. I play Souls games and Monster Hunter almost EXCLUSIVELY, i ignore 99% of games nowdays for being to easy, or being MP shooting stuff. but i will never go around complaining about games because the difficuly don't meet my standards. Some games trigger dopamine in my brain, other don't. I play the games that do, is that easy.

I think it depends on the type and degree of difficulty, as others have mentioned.

I think the Souls games are a good example of games that are hard but even those who struggle to master the mechanics can get through them by farming souls and summoning help for bosses. For the most part it also doesn't have crazy tight timing windows, especially with certain builds. Its a matter of strategy as much as anything else.

However, other games like Sekiro or Ghostrunner I think require a level of reflexes that not everyone has (and provide limited options for increasing your power without progressing). I think these types of games can be fairly criticized for their difficulty if the reviewer is really trying hard to get through them but can't improve past a certain point with their abilities and is not having a good time.

I think the highest scores for games (9+) should be reserved for games that can be enjoyed by people with almost any skill level. Thats not the same as being casual, just that some gamers don't have the same abilities/experience as others and won't be able to achieve the same level of skill in certain games.

Yes and no if it’s not fair. Souls to me are not that hard. Sekiro for example they hit you once or twice you die while you have to hit the bosses multiple times and i personally didn’t like the balance in the game still a good game

Depends on the game. I think one Reternal review said he didn't make it very far and he plays Dark Souls to relax. I gave up on Sekiro over difficulty. I think I invested my skills wrong and need to restart.

Wonderful 101 wasn't hard necessarily... there were some weird dual screen moments that were hard to navigate IMO. The game wasn't difficult to beat, just some sections where I had to use dual screen (on my Wii U I used one screen PiP).

Only if they don't offer difficulty options. In this day there's no excuse for not giving players a large variety of options to enjoy their purchase.

Yes. Games are supposed to be fun and bring joy, not to bring difficulty from start to finish.

No. Shit.

Of course fans of a game would be more forgiven of its shortcomings.

It depends. If the game's difficulty makes sense to the world and its mechanics, then no. If it's difficult because enemies just have more health then yes.

Vampire Rain is a game that flopped and got really low score for being too hard and it deserved it.Bad gameplay design and the players were tortured who bought the game.

Hola saludos desde colombia, en mi caso me gusta mucho los retos, los juegos faciles son para bebes me encanta Grand Theft Auto V genial lo juego todos los dias y te dejo un video para que lo vean.

Is it hard but fair? When you fail and die, do you have no one to blame but yourself? If a game is arbitrarily hard through unfair means, then it deserves to lose points for crossing a line a certain reviewer once called "the Tropic of Fuckabout;" where difficulty stops being a fun and stimulating challenge and starts fucking the player about.

@madrocketeer: I agree, context is key. Some games implement difficulty poorly, but some the rules are clear (or clearly discoverable, if that's important to the design) and the difficulty is fair.

If one should question whether it's legitimate to point out or criticize a game for being "too hard", one should also question the opposite as well; should it be ok for a game to be criticized for being "too easy"?

IMO there's merit to that, yes. While that part can be largely subjective I think games should strike a healthy balance while offering an option for players who are looking for a challenge and those who simply want to sail through (at least the former). Yes there are people who have fun without being challenged and yes others find their fun in the challenge.

I'm currently playing Fire Emblem 3H, a game that offers no easy mode but at least strikes a balance with its normal mode and offers a much harder mode literally called "Maddening" for those who wish for it. I haven't seen much complains about it since it is largely accepted that this game has a good balance.

If a game is simply too easy or too hard, I find it legitimate for that to be pointed out as more often than not people will find either to be negatively impacting their experience. But if all you want to do is bitch about some score then there's no discussion to be had here.

Depends on the game and what kind of difficult we are talking, I personally hate the souls game because I just find them to frustrating and the payoff just wasn’t there. Also in all fairness my skills with a controller is subpar. But of course that is how they are designed so obviously they shouldn’t be deducted points for that!

Other games just have stupidly swingy difficult eg. DQ11 ( otherwise great game) some bosses are super easy, some are perfectly balanced and then every now and a boss pops up who is just utter impossible unless you go grind 6-7 levels... think everyone remember encountering the octopus boss the first time and just being wtf just happened?? And yeah in those cases one could argue that a deduction would be in order!

But that could alienate both the very young and the very old, suggesting that 'games are just for teens and tweens'.

There's no reason why devs can make a slider or something similar that would not affect how hardcore players play, yet allowing someone with slower motor skills to also enjoy the game, especially if they spent hard earned money on it.

There should be an easy mode especially for a reviewer, who has many games to get through. As for me as a general consumer, if your game is too hard and I know beforehand, excellent, money saved. If I find out after I bought it, I can just as easily sell to a friend or on ebay. Dealing with stupid difficulties lessens the amount of games I can get to in a year with the 2-4 hours a week I actually play.

Spend less time on gaming forums and you might have more than those 4hours a week.

Sure. It’s a valid criticism. Same with a game getting docked for being too easy. It’s an aspect of a game that contributes to the overall experience and if that experience is altered by that aspect for the reviewer then it only makes sense that they’d reflect that in both the review and the score.

If it's hard in a positive way like Ninja Gaiden, then that's part of the charm. It's something I don't see that often in games. The game is more difficult, the less skilled you are. So the pressure is in the right place. That sounds really obvious, but it's not usually done this well.

I played through NGB twice recently on normal, the first time it was hard, the second time, I realised a few moves and methods of playing which really help. And it was much better.

It really depends.

Dark Souls difficulty works because it is more challenging than difficult. The game pushes you to play better, a lot of difficult games, are more difficult for the wrong reasons.

If a game is "difficult" via overtuning however then there are probably issues with the games core design.

If a game has a boss fight that takes so long that players who fight it fall unconscious irl. It tells me two things of the game.

1. The game is difficult for all the wrong reasons.

2. The game probably isnt very challenging, and from a moment to moment perspective, demands very little of its players, if they are capable of fighting a boss, and not get defeated within 10 seconds while being in the state of vomiting, falling physically ill, and basically being at the verge of fainting, with some people having already passed out.

18 hour boss fight, of mostly going through the same motions over and over. Is not a challenging fight. A 2 minute long boss fight that feels like it is 20 minutes, however, probably is.

Reviewers have their opinion on certain type of games and its ok. I mean I never passed Mario bros stage 1-2 because I was already bored to death by the terrible gameplay but other people somehow enjoyed the challenge the game gives.

I think the real question is: at what point are the devs responsible for giving a customer their money back? If they refuse to add difficulty options, at the very least they should have a disclaimer that says something like: "only for those with fast motor skills-ages 15-34" or give a full refund to those that can't beat it.

Of course this would never happen, because gaming is very anti-consumer at its core.

Exactly this! Most games that reviewers criticize for being "too hard" are really just as difficult as any regular game used to be.

This, I cannot stand any of the "souls" games. My time is worth more than being frustrated about a video game. I did beat the original demon souls on PS3 though.

Difficulty is NOT standard. What maybe difficult for one gamer may not be for another. It is also funny that difficulty has a tendency of falling into select gaming genres, more commonly hack and slash but there are variances in game's difficulty such as puzzle and strategy games just to name a few.

Or just do what the venerable Team Cherry did: release their very special game at only $15. That way, if it ain't your groove then you can just move on.

Sure, whatever helps to get clicks. More money!

Not all games are made for everyone. I think what these sites need to start doing is making sure they have journalists who enjoy hard games reviewing games like Returnal.

The developers intended for this game to be difficult. It's a design choice.