Every week, sort of, features editor Anthony Burch discusses games and gamer culture in his "Rev Rant" video series. You can watch the previous rants here.
This week's rant is a sort-of answer to my previous video about harmonizing difficulty with accessibility. Last time around, I said I couldn't think of any games that combined the sense of desperation one experiences in The Void or Demon's Souls with the accessibility of any other mainstream game (player-instigated metagames like permadeath runs not withstanding). This week, I realize that Derek Yu's Spelunky fits the bill almost perfectly.
On a barely related note, I just finished Pathologic over the weekend. Ultimately, The Void does pretty much the same stuff as Pathologic, only much better and in a slightly more accessible way. If you can only try one game this year that you'll probably never finish due to ambiguous mechanics and crushing difficulty, make sure that game is The Void.
Additionally, my new goal is to reduce the length of all future rants to three minutes or less.
3 minutes or less would be nice. This one did feel like it was dragging a bit, but ultimately I felt like your point was stronger than that of the recent few before this.
Also some scripting would probably make those 3 minutes a lot easier to commit to and more interesting to listen to over all. But that takes time you probably don't have. Or maybe your aim with these dictates more free-styling approaches.
That's about it though, I watched this yesterday so I forget any more points I might have had to bring up about the actual subject.
haha
nah, for me Ice pick lodge is all Mor. Utopia (pathologic). love the atmosphere much more
from what i heard, it was awfully translated, so it's no surprise you like Turgor more
I think "Tower of Heaven" might be another good example. It's arbitrarily hard (but that's kind of the point), but re-spawning is instantaneous, and none of the levels are more than 30 seconds long. It might take all day to beat, but you're only losing 10 seconds if you die.
I think I might've just fallen into a trap, though -- I might just be conflating instant re-spawn with "play empathy."
God damn I hate watching video on Dtoid because of the intrusive and aggressive video advertisements that always play for every video.
For gods sakes you could at least tell us how long the ad is, avoid doing 30 second ads, and never ever do those long ass 60 second ones just to view a 1 minute video (not that this is 1 minute long but it's happened before with other videos). And forcing an un-pausable ad after every video is done playing through once is a MAJOR no-no, and every time it happens I immediately leave the site. I feel like I'm being haggled by a used car salesman.
Good thing stuff like HAWP is on game trailers because at least their ads are bearable and doesn't feel as forcefully invasive as Dtoid's are for watching video content.
This is about what the checkpoints are with Demon's Souls.
What's the difference?
"And in doing so, you'll probably be able to not make that mistake again [bouncing from a snake into a spike]"
Again, Demon's Souls. Once that first guy jumps out at you, you're on edge. I fail to see how Demon's Souls is any different than these games. As I've said, if you master dodging, the game is butter.
If you want to compare it to VVVVVV THAT'S DIFFERENT. 5 second checkpoints are awesome. I don't know why you didn't lead with VVVVVV.
Flywrench, I feel, later in the game, can have bullshit checkpoints. Some levels require around a minute of precise work, and you have to start all over with the smallest mistake.
You want games to be considered art, to be expressive, but this entire video was about how much you get an immense sense of self gratification from beating hard games. Seems odd.
I recommend you play A Boy and His Blob, Anthony. It's not a difficult game (although the extra levels require some good thinking), but the checkpoint system and the learning methods resemble VVVVVV in a lot of ways. If you have the means to, you should check it out.
And I liked the rant. Wish I could play Demon Souls, just to see what it is all about.
after watching the first seconds of the rant and before i watch the rest of it, i must say that it is time to shave Anthony! i know its not fun, but you need to!
I was on board till he said Demon's Souls deaths were arbitrary, it's all based on skill or in case of death lack of, but ok maybe someone invading your game is arbitrary for some. In that case I still hold it's skill based which doesn't make it arbitrary.
Maybe my issue is just the use of the word arbitrary, I think it's improperly used in it's context.
You pretty much described Demon's Souls, whether you agree with that or not. There's plenty of empathy by your definition in that game, if one abides by the "third time a fool" rationale you were using in describing the concept. You learn pretty darn quickly what is and is not dangerous in that game; and carrying around thousands of liquidated souls in a zone where you can be raided is a known risk that you learn fairly early on. I still don't feel like I've experienced an unavoidable death beyond the first scripted one in the game.
That said, you've sold me on Spelunky. Definitely need to give that one a try.
Well it brings in to some fact that I've been playing Vagrant Story, a 10 year old PSOne game, and it doesn't have any player empathy whatsoever. In fact it's the complete opposite. Save Points are few and far between, enemies suddenly become impossible to hit, let alone damage, and then they can just kill you in one hit, even when you've made sure you've upgraded the weapons and equipment properly.
I've made a post about it on my blog in case anyone wants more information on how damn hard the game is: Love/Hate: Vagrant Story
Maybe part of the reason games like Spelunky, VVVVVV, and probably a fair few more have that replayability and are more friendly to not-so-good players is the graphics and story-line. VVVVVV has a sad beginning, but you get hope early on, and Spelunky has the 16 bit graphics that make everything look nicer.
Demon Souls etc however have a different attitude with the game being based more on you will lose, there is no hope, to the degree in Demon Souls there is a boss in World 2 who you arent suppose to defeat the first time through the world. The game seems more surprised you got to a point further than it was expecting, and unlike easier games (Borderlands for example) that can be ruined if you accidently kill someone alot stronger than you it doesnt ruin the game for the next few hours as you are massively overpowered to the extent that when it becomes difficult again, the way you have been playing (ooh i bet I cant kill that guy by headshotting him in the ear whilst his buddy is meleeing me) makes the game too hard and not as fun. Especially as in those types of games you are only doing the mission to unlock more stuff to play around with.
Shit man, don't cut these down to three min!! Especially if it means sacrificing the the solidarity of your arguments. Right now your like the Martin Luther King of fucking videogames man. That said, even Martin Luther King had a shave once in a while...
Serious question to you Anthony, did you read the Video Game Theory Reader 2? Because I'm pretty sure that's where you've read Jesper Juul's text about difficulty in games. Bernard Perron is actually one of my teacher.
I think the reason that I've fallen out of favor with JRPGs is because they feel self-indulgent and totally disrespectful to the player's time and patience. Instead of innovating in the area of grinding or boss fights, somehow hitpoint-heavy bosses with cheap attacks that can only be defeated by figuring out patterns (which usually takes at least one death to grasp) and inefficient save points is the norm.
I'm not in favor of super-easy quicksave affairs that encourage players to be dishonest (for instance, Fallout 3's speech challenges that are eventually defeated by constantly loading saves), but something in the RPG genre needs to change. I don't have 40 hours to sit through poorly translated cutscenes and unnecessarily long random battles anymore.
I understand this player altruism, but for me to enjoy a game, I have to feel like I'll lose something for me to be afraid to die. This can be good at times yes and terribly frustrating as well. I'm recently playing through the Resident Evil franchise (the first three so far) and when the Nemesis character shows up, my heart starts pumping, not because I care about the character, but because I know when I die I'll have to go back to my other save. With automatic re-spawn that feeling would disappear and there wouldn't be any tension. When you finally complete the game you get a great sense of accomplishment like you actually survived something!
On the other hand, there are some games that beat you down and never stop. Castlevania Symphony of the Night is one, when you die they reset the game. You still have your save, but that 15-30 second death from Too Human perhaps becomes a minute - minute and thirty second restart.
I agree that some games really put people off if they don't like waiting after death, but it also adds suspense. New games today are lacking that, I think that's why Demon's Souls resonates with so many hard-core gamers.
I agree with your assessment with VVVVVV (Rev), cause I finished it this weekend also.
I think skill based games like VVVVVV and Demon's Souls are prime examples of games who's (polar opposite) mechanics are also important to the empathy of the player. From VVVVVV's "depth from simplicity" and Demon's Souls memorization and patience, I think the mechanics of a game can make or break the experience. I say this because from what you say about The Void's interesting mechanics, there is inevitable frustration because some things don't work as they really should, or there are borderline game-breaking scenarios which force you to reload old saves BECAUSE you might have messed up at a certain point.
[i]It would cease to be a "rant" if it was longer than 3 minutes. 3 minutes with a concise script would be a "Rev Concise Argument", not a rant.
Magnalon/Frohike:
I still don't know what the fuck game you two are playing. It's definitely not Demon's Souls.
Any game in which the objective "get across this bridge" is complicated with,
"also you have to take all your armor off to be fast enough to get across this bridge because of the dragon flame, except we won't ever tell you that, and also there's a bunch of guys at the end of the bridge whom you can't see from the only safe spot on the bridge so when you make it to the end the first time they'll kill you and you'll have to do everything again, and if you try to go underground there are these dogs that hide in the darkness and at one point you'll get attacked from the rear down there without warning so be ready to either heal or just die and remember where they are, so good luck with that, and even if you've proven you can make it to the end of the bridge and take everyone out, we're going to put a boss at the end and not give you a checkpoint at the end of the bridge, so you'll have to do all of this all over again if you die against the boss, which you will"
is not a game with any tremendous amount of empathy for the player.
Spelunky isn't Demon's Souls because: (1) in Spelunky you literally never repeat ANYTHING, in terms of puzzle solving or landscape traversal. Whatever frustration you might feel from dying in Spelunky is mitigated by the fact that, hey, I've got a brand-new set of levels to deal with. (2) Fifteen minutes is the absolute *maximum* amount of time you will ever, ever need to replay. The fifteen minute estimation assumes that you made it all the way to the end of the game and then died. More likely, you'll have lost two minutes or less of actual playtime. Demon's Souls is nowhere *near* that respectful to your time.
I didn't lead with VVVVVV because it doesn't make you feel desperation in the way that Spelunky does (the ridiculously frequent deaths and 100% lack of consequence pretty much remove any sense of legitimate loss), and I was linking Spelunky to my earlier rant about harmonizing desperation and accessibility.
Demon's souls is one of the few games that pretty much REQUIRES a strategy guide/gamefaqs walkthrough/wiki...
I definitely see where you're coming from, without outside material, I would probably be in the same frustrated boat as you. If i Die once, or things seem hopeless, I'll read through the walkthrough and see if there is something I should be doing differently. I know some people think this is cheating, but it doesn't make the game any less fun. So I suggest going that route if you're becoming frustrated.
BY THE WAY: you can kill that dragon by standing in the safe spot, on the upper level, and shooting arrows as it when it passes (bring around 200 arrows) took me like 15 minutes to drop it, but well worth it for the amount of should u get from it. ^_^
I personally enjoyed Prinny : Can I Really Be the Hero? on PSP. It's very difficult, but has fun with it's difficulty. You start with 1000 prinnies. When I finished I was down to a tad over 500. It's rough but satifying.
Demon's Souls is strict, not "arbitrarily difficult."
Darksiders on Apocalyptic is arbitrarily difficult. There aren't new mechanics to master, or challenges to overcome. The monsters take longer to kill because they soak up damage, and War becomes a little girl about getting hit.
Demon's Souls requires that you develop skills and approach any given danger in a specific way, but once you learn what you're doing, that difficulty has been overcome for the duration, and unless you intentionally deviate, you'll never have a problem with it again. It isn't for everyone, and I might be taking your one, very limited statement out of context (though doubtful), but I feel that Demon's Souls often doesn't receive a fair shake because people are always torked about how "difficult" it is, when all it really is is strict about how you need to play it.
This opens up a whole other argument about whether or not games should be so bold as to tell us how to play them, which I'll gladly engage in should I be asked, but it is irrelevant to the topic at hand.
Arbitrary difficulty is flippant in its application, such as one-shot kills, or monsters that take an unrealistic amount of punishment before falling. Demon's Souls simply doesn't do this.
In fact, after re-watching this Rant, you could substitute "Demon's Souls" for "Spelunkee (sp?)," and everything said concerning concept, but barring specifics concerning game-play, would still hold true.
@ Magnalon
Yeah, I hugely agree about dodging in Demon's Souls. It's almost broken how much easier it makes the game.
I've escaped death from many bosses with little more than well-timed dodges. Maybe it's just easier for me, considering hours upon hours of Third Strike and Garou have made that sort of timing come a bit more naturally.
i'm a whore for Demon's Souls. I let it spank me, and i spank it back a little, but in the end it always wins. By that i mean a Demon's Souls session is always ended with me frustrated and it laughing at me.
I always go back though.
oh yeah, the fucking ad's on these Videos are intrusive and feel like I'm being raped. I'm all for the Toid getting some ad revenue, but shit, these things are spoiling Video's on this site for me. the Stella Artois ads were OK, even the FUCKING XBOX ads all over my PS3 videos were acceptable, but these super long car ads piss me off. I am dissapoint to see that fuckinf Legion ad has returned. I'm not going to watch that film because of the intrusive advert.
2nd: How many people allready mentioned the new stupid prince of persia and how it pretty much did the same shit in terms of taking out the frustration of dieing
3rd: You know, the devs could also make the game so much fun that you don't even give a fuck about dieing because you KNOW you will replay what you just did and it was a load of fun anyway.
Also see okami.
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Contest:
3:00 PM on 01.20.2010
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Rev, would notoriously difficult games like Mega Man be more palatable to mass audiences if they had more player empathy? A casual mode, so to speak?
Also some scripting would probably make those 3 minutes a lot easier to commit to and more interesting to listen to over all. But that takes time you probably don't have. Or maybe your aim with these dictates more free-styling approaches.
That's about it though, I watched this yesterday so I forget any more points I might have had to bring up about the actual subject.
nah, for me Ice pick lodge is all Mor. Utopia (pathologic). love the atmosphere much more
from what i heard, it was awfully translated, so it's no surprise you like Turgor more
I think I might've just fallen into a trap, though -- I might just be conflating instant re-spawn with "play empathy."
For gods sakes you could at least tell us how long the ad is, avoid doing 30 second ads, and never ever do those long ass 60 second ones just to view a 1 minute video (not that this is 1 minute long but it's happened before with other videos). And forcing an un-pausable ad after every video is done playing through once is a MAJOR no-no, and every time it happens I immediately leave the site. I feel like I'm being haggled by a used car salesman.
Good thing stuff like HAWP is on game trailers because at least their ads are bearable and doesn't feel as forcefully invasive as Dtoid's are for watching video content.
Eitherway, I don't feel like you should restrain yourself in time, just rant as long as you have and want to
This is about what the checkpoints are with Demon's Souls.
What's the difference?
"And in doing so, you'll probably be able to not make that mistake again [bouncing from a snake into a spike]"
Again, Demon's Souls. Once that first guy jumps out at you, you're on edge. I fail to see how Demon's Souls is any different than these games. As I've said, if you master dodging, the game is butter.
If you want to compare it to VVVVVV
THAT'S DIFFERENT. 5 second checkpoints are awesome. I don't know why you didn't lead with VVVVVV.
Flywrench, I feel, later in the game, can have bullshit checkpoints. Some levels require around a minute of precise work, and you have to start all over with the smallest mistake.
Also, I'm all good with these 5+ min rants. I hope you don't start taking points out just to make the 3 minute mark.
And I liked the rant. Wish I could play Demon Souls, just to see what it is all about.
Maybe my issue is just the use of the word arbitrary, I think it's improperly used in it's context.
I love these advertisements.
That said, you've sold me on Spelunky. Definitely need to give that one a try.
I've made a post about it on my blog in case anyone wants more information on how damn hard the game is: Love/Hate: Vagrant Story
Demon Souls etc however have a different attitude with the game being based more on you will lose, there is no hope, to the degree in Demon Souls there is a boss in World 2 who you arent suppose to defeat the first time through the world. The game seems more surprised you got to a point further than it was expecting, and unlike easier games (Borderlands for example) that can be ruined if you accidently kill someone alot stronger than you it doesnt ruin the game for the next few hours as you are massively overpowered to the extent that when it becomes difficult again, the way you have been playing (ooh i bet I cant kill that guy by headshotting him in the ear whilst his buddy is meleeing me) makes the game too hard and not as fun. Especially as in those types of games you are only doing the mission to unlock more stuff to play around with.
Keep it how it is.
I'm not in favor of super-easy quicksave affairs that encourage players to be dishonest (for instance, Fallout 3's speech challenges that are eventually defeated by constantly loading saves), but something in the RPG genre needs to change. I don't have 40 hours to sit through poorly translated cutscenes and unnecessarily long random battles anymore.
On the other hand, there are some games that beat you down and never stop. Castlevania Symphony of the Night is one, when you die they reset the game. You still have your save, but that 15-30 second death from Too Human perhaps becomes a minute - minute and thirty second restart.
I agree that some games really put people off if they don't like waiting after death, but it also adds suspense. New games today are lacking that, I think that's why Demon's Souls resonates with so many hard-core gamers.
I think skill based games like VVVVVV and Demon's Souls are prime examples of games who's (polar opposite) mechanics are also important to the empathy of the player. From VVVVVV's "depth from simplicity" and Demon's Souls memorization and patience, I think the mechanics of a game can make or break the experience. I say this because from what you say about The Void's interesting mechanics, there is inevitable frustration because some things don't work as they really should, or there are borderline game-breaking scenarios which force you to reload old saves BECAUSE you might have messed up at a certain point.
[i]It would cease to be a "rant" if it was longer than 3 minutes. 3 minutes with a concise script would be a "Rev Concise Argument", not a rant.
Keep it how it is.[/i]
I agree 100%
I still don't know what the fuck game you two are playing. It's definitely not Demon's Souls.
Any game in which the objective "get across this bridge" is complicated with,
"also you have to take all your armor off to be fast enough to get across this bridge because of the dragon flame, except we won't ever tell you that, and also there's a bunch of guys at the end of the bridge whom you can't see from the only safe spot on the bridge so when you make it to the end the first time they'll kill you and you'll have to do everything again, and if you try to go underground there are these dogs that hide in the darkness and at one point you'll get attacked from the rear down there without warning so be ready to either heal or just die and remember where they are, so good luck with that, and even if you've proven you can make it to the end of the bridge and take everyone out, we're going to put a boss at the end and not give you a checkpoint at the end of the bridge, so you'll have to do all of this all over again if you die against the boss, which you will"
is not a game with any tremendous amount of empathy for the player.
Spelunky isn't Demon's Souls because: (1) in Spelunky you literally never repeat ANYTHING, in terms of puzzle solving or landscape traversal. Whatever frustration you might feel from dying in Spelunky is mitigated by the fact that, hey, I've got a brand-new set of levels to deal with. (2) Fifteen minutes is the absolute *maximum* amount of time you will ever, ever need to replay. The fifteen minute estimation assumes that you made it all the way to the end of the game and then died. More likely, you'll have lost two minutes or less of actual playtime. Demon's Souls is nowhere *near* that respectful to your time.
I didn't lead with VVVVVV because it doesn't make you feel desperation in the way that Spelunky does (the ridiculously frequent deaths and 100% lack of consequence pretty much remove any sense of legitimate loss), and I was linking Spelunky to my earlier rant about harmonizing desperation and accessibility.
Demon's souls is one of the few games that pretty much REQUIRES a strategy guide/gamefaqs walkthrough/wiki...
I definitely see where you're coming from, without outside material, I would probably be in the same frustrated boat as you. If i Die once, or things seem hopeless, I'll read through the walkthrough and see if there is something I should be doing differently. I know some people think this is cheating, but it doesn't make the game any less fun. So I suggest going that route if you're becoming frustrated.
BY THE WAY: you can kill that dragon by standing in the safe spot, on the upper level, and shooting arrows as it when it passes (bring around 200 arrows) took me like 15 minutes to drop it, but well worth it for the amount of should u get from it. ^_^
cheers!
Darksiders on Apocalyptic is arbitrarily difficult. There aren't new mechanics to master, or challenges to overcome. The monsters take longer to kill because they soak up damage, and War becomes a little girl about getting hit.
Demon's Souls requires that you develop skills and approach any given danger in a specific way, but once you learn what you're doing, that difficulty has been overcome for the duration, and unless you intentionally deviate, you'll never have a problem with it again. It isn't for everyone, and I might be taking your one, very limited statement out of context (though doubtful), but I feel that Demon's Souls often doesn't receive a fair shake because people are always torked about how "difficult" it is, when all it really is is strict about how you need to play it.
This opens up a whole other argument about whether or not games should be so bold as to tell us how to play them, which I'll gladly engage in should I be asked, but it is irrelevant to the topic at hand.
Arbitrary difficulty is flippant in its application, such as one-shot kills, or monsters that take an unrealistic amount of punishment before falling. Demon's Souls simply doesn't do this.
Personally, I think three minutes would be too short for Rev Rants.
That's why I just pronounce it "V-Six".
@ Magnalon
Yeah, I hugely agree about dodging in Demon's Souls. It's almost broken how much easier it makes the game.
I've escaped death from many bosses with little more than well-timed dodges. Maybe it's just easier for me, considering hours upon hours of Third Strike and Garou have made that sort of timing come a bit more naturally.
I always go back though.
oh yeah, the fucking ad's on these Videos are intrusive and feel like I'm being raped. I'm all for the Toid getting some ad revenue, but shit, these things are spoiling Video's on this site for me. the Stella Artois ads were OK, even the FUCKING XBOX ads all over my PS3 videos were acceptable, but these super long car ads piss me off. I am dissapoint to see that fuckinf Legion ad has returned. I'm not going to watch that film because of the intrusive advert.
it's like anti-marketing.
2nd: How many people allready mentioned the new stupid prince of persia and how it pretty much did the same shit in terms of taking out the frustration of dieing
3rd: You know, the devs could also make the game so much fun that you don't even give a fuck about dieing because you KNOW you will replay what you just did and it was a load of fun anyway.
Also see okami.