I have convinced myself that these must be individuals who have never played hard games before Dark Souls 1, or else they'd know that a series that was notorious for being difficult...
Well said man. I wouldn't cry if HK got difficulty sliders or claim they haven't beaten it if they do it on easy mode. Why would I? I wouldn't block the club house door from the HK chads house.
agreed, but when i beat a souls boss after a few tries, 99% of the time i feel im just memorizing their attack list, not actually playing better.
Utterly irrelevant and different design philosophies. Dark Souls is difficult because it's part of the core design. Miyazaki wants the repeated failures until the player triumphs and feels that sense of accomplishment. NG is hard because Itagaki is an asshole.I have convinced myself that these must be individuals who have never played hard games before Dark Souls 1, or else they'd know that a series that was notorious for being difficult...
...had difficulty options. The "Ninja Dog" meme didn't come from nowhere.
You could potentially argue this with Ninja Gaiden 2, but are you actually claiming that Itagaki's team didn't design for a sense of accomplishment with Ninja Gaiden Black?
Calling people "losers" for defending a genre they're passionate about? That's a lazy, insecure take. If your only counter to criticism is to insult people who enjoy a challenge, you're not arguing, you're just projecting.
Nah, not really. The dude had play testers complaining it was too hard and decided to make it even harder just to be an asshole. He made the game hard to appeal to the hardcore crowd as a callback to old school hard games.
difficulty is not what makes the "genre" special.
You're saying difficulty isn't what makes the Soulslike genre special? That's a wild revision of history.
Claiming you've beaten all the games doesn't change the facts. Being passionate about something doesn't mean you get to redefine it to suit your preference. Passionate fans defend what makes the genre unique, not what makes it more accessible to people who dont want to engage with the core systems
As for the "just gatekeeping" argument: no, it's not about ego. It's about preserving the artistic intent and mechanical identity of these games. Easy mode isnt harmless if it shifts the developer's design focus or pressures them to dilute what makes their games stand out in the first place
Your Clair Obscur comparison falls flat because Soulslikes aren't built like traditional RPGs with optional difficulty sliders. They're designed from the ground up around challenge, enemy placement, stamina management, level layout, checkpoint spacing, it's all deliberately tuned to create tension and reward mastery.
its bullshit and still just gatekeeping.
its difficulty as much as choosing your build and level exploration / inter connectivity.
In all that you never said how adding options takes any of that away. You're still free to do all that while others can do it their way.
Lean patterns and overcome obstacles is one of the most satisfactory things in video games.
And how does any of that change for you when you can just play the game on the base difficulty which is the one it has now, while someone else on the other side of the world chooses the easy setting, where hit a little bit less hard for example?
It's kind of terrifying how outcome-oriented society has become.
He got undertale.... and had it platinumed the next day... without knowing what the game was about....
Calling it gatekeeping doesn't make your argument any stronger buddy
And no, someone playing on easy is not having the same experience as someone on standard difficulty.
Quoting Miyazaki doesn't help your point either. He's said the games aren't only about difficulty, but he's also emphasized that the struggle is part of the emotional journey. That's the artistic intent you're dismissing
If you want games with easier options, there are plenty. But don't come into a genre defined by challenge and demand it stop being what it is just to suit your preferences. That's not inclusivity, that's entitlement
That's honestly depressing....
The entire community goes down the drain if you can just resort to "lower the difficulty". What's the point of summoning? What's the point of figuring out weaknesses, patterns, combo strings, etc, if in the end, you can just adjust the difficulty if you're stuck?
The problem isn't that you can play on easy. The problem is that once an easy mode is officially supported, the entire design philosophy starts to shift
I can get behind a creator sticking to their guns in making games the way they want them to be. No argument there. It's just a balancing act with how much money they want to make vs how much they're willing to leave on the table in the end.
The director was inspired by Dark Souls as to his reasons for making the game difficult. That's why we bring it up.
i rly dont know why ppl think Ninja Gaiden is that hard, its a pretty doable game in hard difficultI have convinced myself that these must be individuals who have never played hard games before Dark Souls 1, or else they'd know that a series that was notorious for being difficult...
...had difficulty options. The "Ninja Dog" meme didn't come from nowhere.
Ninja Gaiden on normal difficulty isn't much of a problem. Some challenging bosses like Alma, but very doable. It becomes crazy on Master Ninja, but you have to beat the game thrice beforehand on increasingly higher difficulties, so most people never make it that far.
PotM is doable too, its a bit annoying and frustrate at the begging, but once you start to believe the tables turn and you start some ass kicking and thats why souls games must stay as it is, no difficult slider, cause the reward of learning and beating the game out weight the frustration immensely.
