If you don't want challenge, can't you just turn the difficulty down? Isn't that why difficulty options exist in the first place?

I thought the reason i spend over fifty dollars on a game is to, y'know, play the game, experience worlds and experiment with rules and goals and mechanics and all that. I'm not ever, ever, EVER going to drop that kind of money on a game that i don't actually have to play. Because - i repeat - if i don't have to play it, then it's not a game. A game that will play itself is almost an insult to the form.

I'm sorry, but this is crazy. People are getting so upset about something that will not affect them at all if they don't choose to use it. Jon B complained that it takes away from the value of being able to finish the game genuinely if someone else can do it using this new method. Why? How does it do that? If you complete the game without using the new method, you can still claim that you've beaten it the "true" way. If I beat a game by glitching it or cheating to get through, does that ruin it for you? What if I'd just like to see the story and I don't particularly care for the gameplay? For example, let's say I'm not an RPG nut (actually, I am one, so this is purely hypothetical) and I hate random battles. If I didn't like random battles but I loved a game's story I'd be happy to have the kind of "skip button" that is being described here.

And to everyone complaining about it taking the "game" aspect out of games, I would say that I could care less what your definition of "game" is anyway. If I have fun skipping through all the actual gameplay, then who are you to care? It's not like if somebody beats a hard game the "easy" way, it invalidates all your work on doing it the "hard" way. If you really feel that way, you need to grow up. Frankly, considering the cost of games these days, this should be a mandatory feature in any game for people who want it. If I pay 60 bucks for a game and can't beat the first level because I suck, I'd like to be able to have the option to see all that content that I paid for. It's not like games are some kind of sporting event or competitive challenge (at least not single-player games), they are a piece of entertainment that us consumers pay good money for. Therefore, if I want my game to beat itself and I pay for it, it had damned well better beat itself.

Ha, good one Wedge.

Was it Podtoid that this came up on? Like most people my reaction is "meh" but I share the concern of it leading to more sloppiness in game design. Upon writing it I do think that it's a bit of a nothing concern but if Nintendo continues to treat the hardcore market like the annoying older child trying to steal attention from the new baby then I can really see them making a game with the expectation that people will be using this feature. If it goes the other way round and allows a few hard games to come out it'd make me happy.

"You're supposed to keep trying until you improve your skills, and then feel completely awesome after you finally beat "That One Boss" or "That One Level"."

I tried that with Mega Man 9, the demo, at least.

I nearly through my controller at my TV, and then after that, I'm sure I would have sued Sony for not making wrist straps for the Dualshock 3.

Ah this reminds me of why i stopped posting on here, people who are having a problem with an optional feature are batshit fucking insane.

I don't really know whats going on, but I hate it.

I remember as a little kid playing NES I would spin into a tumultuous controller throwing rage every time a game was too hard. And I loved it. It is a huge part of what made me the person/gamer I am today. With an auto-beat button or whatever that, lets face it, little kids will use, a lot of the satisfaction of gaming will be lost on them. At the very least it will be altered. So, will it have an affect on us? No. Will it have an affect on the future, that's a whole-hearted yes. And it sucks.

Batshit or not.. Isn't that what a save file is for? Or hidden Easter Eggs, or Cheat Codes? Have these EE or CC somehow failed us, and we can't have these hidden anymore? Is a save file too hard to use?

I'm not personally angry they will begin putting in a HELP button, (the WIN button comment, BTW, is pure WIN). It don't make a diff to me IF it is truly optional. Everyone deserves a pause or break when stuck sometimes.

If N. bucks the trend they've been on lately, and it actually allows for MORE difficulty, I will be happy happy joy joy. We won't have too long to wait and see how it is actually implemented.

But, my gut tells me this may be the final nail in the modern games coffin for me. If I have to see things like pop-ups/messages saying, "Oh, you died twice on that part now. Here, baby, just press B to warp to the end of this level"..coddle coddle coddle. Ugh.

If implemented badly, this sets bad precedence. The message would then be, "games without patented in-game help are too high maintenance".

Honestly, I don't want my g/f or more competitive friends thinking all big of themselves that they beat my time/score & defeated an already really "easy" game by cutting corners.. and they point their finger to me saying U SUCK. A game that rewards all the cheats, and effectively shortchanging those that play it on regular is the thing I think sucks the most. "High-maintenance" or challenge is why I play video games instead of sitting around painting by numbers/connect the dots.

About half these comments boil down to "I get so much satisfaction from beating games that even people that aren't me should be forced to play exactly as I do." I'm a bit of a braggart but I'm not an elitist that gets upset about how other people might possibly be using an optional feature that doesn't yet even exist.

Having the option to have the game play itself for you seems like a much better solution than they came up with for Super Mario Galaxy. In that game they just made sure there wasn't any challenge at all. I'd rather have had the game play itself there because I was bored out of my mind after the first 2 hours or so.

WOW it just occurred to me, that this is so the 'Maybe Catagory' they spoke of at e3 are more inclined to play. Because usually that same branch of people cry about games being complicated or hard. So if you tailor games, so they can skip it when it gets too hard. They can stretch the learning curve, and in turn take on more challenging things at their own pace. But still enjoy the "experience" of the game, and the events and worlds that unfold.

And it is only now that i think of it like this, that it seems like a good idea. Not that it phased me before.

It might be optional but if it's there then it's too tempting not to do. Nintendo doesn't have an achievement system so there it won't be like you're going to get anything for not using it. If Nintendo does this and it is anything other than like a difficulty level then I probably won't be buying that game.

lol there's no reasoning with you guys is there?

I see this as an opportunity make the games more difficult without having to sacrifice the audience who may not have the skills but still want to experience the game.

So only reason i can see why any one would be against this is if they have control problem and are going to select it despite not wanting to in which case this is hardly the biggest of your concerns.

I think people are overreacting WAY to much over this.

Its optional.
Nintendo games haven't been hard in ages.

And this last one is crucial, bear with me cause I'm breaking out the caps lock...

NINTENDO IS NOT MAKING GAMES WITH THE TRADITIONAL GAMER IN MIND SO STOP ACTING LIKE THEY DO.

By traditional gamer I mean the person who grew with consoles, the guy that still remembers every enemy pattern in Contra, every boss weakness in megaman games, the guy who took down Mike Tyson in Punch-Out, in other words, about 90% of the people who grew up with a Nintendo.

Nintendo is making games for the casual crowd, at this point its their biggest market share, they are number 1 because of it, this feature is for them, not for you, so calm down, take a chill pill and stop whining so much over something that doesn't affect you in any way, shape or form.

And please lets leave the knee jerk reactions and assumptions over future games at the door? Seriously this has got to be the most pointless argument I have ever seen on this site, talk about mammoth overreactions.

Oh and as a person who isn't getting younger, I have 0 issues with this, I've been playing games for 21 years, my reflexes and patience are not what they used to be, if I'm frustrated and want to get past an area I've been stuck at for hours, you bet your ass I'm gonna use this feature and I could care less what the elitist gaming crowd thinks.

I guess you must be the kind of people who snub people who use guides huh.

Kudos to Nintendo for realizing that frustration, anger and getting stuck somewhere is not fun, not entertaining and I don't feel a sense of satisfaction when I'm done, just a "thank god that shit is finally over", I then turn off the console and put the game away and don't touch it for weeks.

Exhibit A for me: Devil Summoner 2, those stupid spell dungeons, took me 2 hours to get past one 3 weeks ago, haven't played the game since, with a feature like this one hour in I would have said fuck it and used it.

Its a shame you've all lose sight of what gaming is supposed to be.

Its supposed to be fun.

Kyosuke Nanbu says "Kudos to Nintendo for realizing that frustration, anger and getting stuck somewhere is not fun, not entertaining and I don't feel a sense of satisfaction when I'm done, just a "thank god that shit is finally over", I then turn off the console and put the game away and don't touch it for weeks. "


You know, you're right, but if you are feeling that way when you playing a game, that's probably one of two things: a) you personally don't like the game, or b) the game is badly designed. there is no excuse for bad game design.

Features like this one are an excuse for bad game design.

I am not being a "gamer elitist" when i say that this a monumentally silly thing to do. See, this is how it works:

Nintendo is a major publisher. Nintendo releases system with motion controls, markets it to 'non-gamers' eg. people who watch lots of TV. Nintendo makes piles of money, even though all the games suck balls. Shigeru Miyamoto makes games you barely have to pay attention to to play, and the result is piles and piles of money. Microsoft/Sony, interested in making piles of money, announces an attempt on casual crowd - this involves more motion controls and releasing similarly lifeless and uninvolving games. Even the commercials look the same. The result - there are large amounts of money and time being poured into games designed to be played by the living dead. There is less money and time being devoted to developing involving and interesting games that continue to refine and experiment with concepts introduced years ago.

So then, Miyamoto, being the genius game designer that he is (ahem,) announces that now, you don't actually have to play his games if you don't want to. You can still give his employer a bunch of money, though. 'non-gamers' ie. tv-watching people around the world rejoice, because Miyamoto made Mario, so he must know what he's talking about.

Miyamoto, international supergenius, eventually makes a Zelda game that is a trainwreck of game design - soulless, cliched, rehashed, both boring and frustrating in varying amounts, but it doesn't actually matter because you don't have to play the game if you don't want to. The game is real purdy to look at. The game sells millions and recieves glowing reviews on account of its zeldaness and accessibility. Major publishers take notice. You can pretty much guess the rest. The game industry is more prone to imitation than perhaps any other entertainment industry. (I still can't believe you people love Dead Space so much.)

As all this happens, the ratio of 'actual games with a point' to 'game salad' falls and falls. Unfun games made by idiots with contrived mechanics and horrible balance and pacing issues make piles of money because apparently this shit will pass for actual game design.

Excuse me for thinking this would be a horrible trend. It affects me because it's really nice to to go an EBgames and find something that's actually worth the money and time i would spend on it. I'd like for that to keep happening, yeah.

This is almost as bad as when developers arbitrarily inflate the challenge of a game with optional achievements/trophies! I know that it's not in any way required that I get them, but they make the game too hard and I don't like them! Frankly, they are too masochistic--it's like I'm not even playing a game anymore, since it's so hard. So, therefore, because I personally dislike these optional achievments even though they do nothing to affect the core game, I demand that they not be included in future games in order to meet with my particular sensibilities. I don't care what makes other people happy, I want it MY WAY!

Honestly, guys.

To start off, let me just say flat out that I would personally never use something like this.

However, with that said, I'm not 100% against this. If someone is simply not enjoying a game at all because they keep dying over and over at the same spot hundreds of times, then a means for them to get past this part and move on is probably a good thing (though if they can't get past that part, why should they expect to be able to get past the later, presumably even harder parts, or are they planning to simply let the game play itself the rest of the way?). Otherwise, they'll probably just say fuck it and stop playing altogether.

On the other hand, if they were masochistic like me, they would keep trying that part a thousand, a million times, until they got it themselves, because there are few experiences quite like that billionth+one try where you can finally finally say, "...wait, did I actually just make it through that time? Really? You mean it was possible to make it past that point? You mean the game designers really weren't sadistic assholes who made an impossible game just to fuck with me?! Holy shit! This is fucking awesome! I AM FUCKING AWESOME (IGNORING THE FACT THAT I SUCKED ASS FOR THE PAST BILLION ATTEMPTS)!!!" And then you die immediately afterward and have to redo it a billion more times anyway.

But, eh, I guess for the people who don't have the inclination for that sort of thing, more power to them and I hope they enjoy and make good use of this new feature. *shrug*

And now, having gone back and read some of the comments here (which I skipped before), I just have a question. I ask this question out of idle curiosity, mostly.

Why are gamers, very generally speaking, one of the most jaded and cynical group of people that I have ever interacted with? It's like we're manic/depressive, but with the pendulum usually in the depressive state. When word of a new awesome game or whatever comes along, like it does every once in a while, we're suitably giddy and all that, but most of the time we're usually just a bunch of colossal dicks and assholes about most other things, especially if they're things they we don't care about or don't like, even if just a little bit. Really, why is this the case? Destructoid should totally make an article out of this question.

Haxan: And you really have to overthink it (which is kind of my specialty) to find any detriment.

RESPONSE: GAME OVERTHINKER v19 "A Third Way?"

I've realized in the past couple of days that with the exception of my close friends that I play with, I hate people who play video games.

You know, this is nothing new. Monkey Island did it. You pressed Shift+W and got the question: "Do you want to win the game?" You hit Y, and you were teleported to a black screen saying "Congratulations, you just won the game!" followed by the credits.

...and now after all these years they're really doing this. Also, Ron Gilbert = forerunner of /b/ memes?

@TJF588
That's a really great video, by the way.

My solution to this "problem" is "Easy Automatic". A super easy mode, easier than "easy" with different, easier level designs, and a 1-button press combo system. Both "Kind Code", and "Easy Automatic" are optional, but Easy Automatic eases you into the game, and still has you ACTUALLY PLAYING IT.

@JTF588.
THANKS FOR YOUR RESPONSE. That was actually a decently thought out video on the concept. He does make a lot of interesting and valid points.

@Im OK
I am manic depressive. Does explain a lot, hah.