Hard video games

[nodle]

So I think it all started with Dark Souls. It was a very hard game that basically was so tough people loved it. Then you had other games come out like Rust, and Day Z, more hard games where you lose everything. I also saw it happen to games like WoW where people left because it had gotten easier and easier. You lost the dedicated hard core players that like a challenge. I think there is difficultly setting on Dark Souls where when you die you have to start all over and you lose everything, and guess what people love it. So it got me thinking. Let's make a super hard game that you pay $60 for and when you die the game locks and you cannot play it anymore unless you buy another copy. Is this pure genius? I almost think people would go for it to be "HARD-CORE"!

 

[ndboarder]

I'm not sold on the idea. I'm sure you would get those "hardcore" people that might buy into it, but I think the few able and willing to spend that kind of money would be few and far between. Basically I doubt those few would purchase enough copies to make it worth producing let alone compare to those willing to just buy a tough game they can play repeatedly...

tougher games have certainly made a bit of a comeback. Back to the NES days without game saves or checkpoints. If you run out of lives your are done with the game, if you die you restart the level. I know the remastered ducktales had a setting to go to that level, which basically would've matched the original on the NES. I remember beating it on the NES, but I"m spoiled by game saves and checkpoints. Not a mode I care to try anymore.

 

[nodle]

Do you remember Zelda, wasn't it the first game with a battery backup backup? Now we have cloud saves.

 

[ndboarder]

I don't remember any game saving my progress prior to somewhere on the Genesis, but I never played a Zelda game, so...

 

[jmanz]

Do you remember Zelda, wasn't it the first game with a battery backup backup? Now we have cloud saves.

I'm not sure if it was the first but yeah, it would save. You needed to in a game like that. I always got irritated with games with non save points.

 

[nodle]

But like @ndboarder was saying, it really made you play the game over and over. You were basically memorizing where to press buttons at the exact right moment. Battletoads anyone?

 

[nodle]

This thread got me thinking about how successful Cuphead was not only because of the graphics but because of the hardness of the game. People complained at first then grew to love it.