The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Okay, so I’m going to attempt to make a point about vidjeo gamez. Stand back.

Difficulty in video games. On one paw, you have things like this. Horrible, awful things that only exist to be hard and, potentially, drain your will to live. On the other, you have things, perhaps, like this, where perhaps the complains of “OMG for n00bs too easy” are warranted.

Still, I’m so far in the second camp, it’s silly.

I’ve never been into video games for the challenge. I can’t remember a time when I thought a game was too easy or too simple. I don’t doubt it happened once or twice. But no strong examples spring to mind.
Like most gamers my age, I grew up playing games. I played all of the hard games, of course. At the same time, I sure as hell used my Game Genie a lot. So I guess I had more fun when I was jumping over the levels in Super Mario Brothers 2 than when I was trying it for reals and failing. As games matured I found RPGs, and latched onto them. Here was a genre where, much like in the design of the original Dragon Quest, if you couldn’t defeat something, you could overcome it with sheer perseverance and level-grinding. The fact that I didn’t have skills didn’t matter so much. I could still enjoy the game, and I got a little story in there, too. Then came music games into my consciousness, a genre where it’s just all about fun. There’s a challenge element, but you can set it to easier modes and still feel like a rock star, or, more appropriately for my first excursion, enjoy the humorous and catchy rap tunes.

And now, difficulty need not be an element at all in games. It’s so far away from what’s actually popular. I couldn’t be happier. Sure, once I’ve mastered a difficulty in Rock Band, I do kick it up to make it more challenging, but that’s not the real reason I’m playing. I want to feel like I’m rocking out to my favorite songs. Sure, I do enjoy a roguelike now and again, and those are the hardest games out there. But the idea isn’t to beat those games. It’s about seeing the progression of your own skills. I know that that’s probably what everyone does in every hard game. “Yes, I made it X amount farther than last time!” But I don’t know. Most games have the end as a goal. Roguelikes don’t. It, like golf, is simply all about bettering yourself. If a roguelike is worth its salt, you will probably never be able to beat every single run you do. But that is okay.
The point is, games without challenge can be just as fun. I love the crap out of all of Telltale’s adventure games, and they are essentially interactive stories than games. Same with Phoenix Wright, or Hotel Dusk. These are very, very entertaining games! I love the crap out of them. Difficulty isn’t necessary.

In fact, more and more I’ve been doing away with difficulty entirely, and enjoying games more for it. I play too much shit to get stuck on one level and play it over and over. The last thing I want in a game is to die more than once or twice in an area, and even if I do die, I want it to have auto-saved close enough to keep the frustration down. So I pick easy in games, sure. All the time. Games I know I’m good at, I go normal. But there’s no shame in Easy mode. I’m sure I got just as much enjoyment out of Persona 4 playing it on Easy than anyone else did on normal, and it stopped me from getting stuck on the harder bosses.

There was a while where I bought into the hype. That I was getting soft spending my time playing Crossword DS and shit. But just like there are a wide variety of types of things in any media, there is a place for easy, casual, and completely non-challenging games. I love them more and more as I have less and less time to consume things that take awhile to get to the fun, or frustrate me during what is supposed to be my leisure time.

Bring on the tiny, fun, easy games, I say. I will be there to buy them.

(And if this blog post didn’t turn out as imagined, I blame PaRappa the Rapper, who completely distracted me for like an hour as I was looking up a youtube video for that link up there. Damn you for being so catchy! But again, I had fun reliving those games. So who cares. WHO CARE
Also, this is probably why I don’t try to write more detailed blog posts. Yep.)