Topic: Personal preferences on difficulty

[Ratty]

I default to normal for the most part, but if I like the game to play it again, I'll kick it up to a harder difficulty.

Some exceptions are games that actually give you more things to do. Not unlocking trophies or secrets like JM mentioned, but actual gameplay differences. GoldenEye and the Thief series presented more objectives when played on harder modes, and they really enrich the experience. I think GoldenEye's hard mode also has enemies that shot quicker and took off more hit points when they hit you or something, which is kind of cheap, but Thief left the rest of the difficulty essentially the same (aside from maybe some added enemies), the challenge of the added mission objectives being what makes things harder, which is a great approach, I think.

Interesting. Guess I'll have to turn it up to hard when I finally get around to playing Thief.

I've never understood how people could consider CV3 harder than CV1. Maybe if you're playing a solo game, yes. But otherwise I don't see it or experienced it that way. I beat CV3 long before I got all the way through CV1. Ninja Ryukenden 1 is just bullshit unfair hard in a class all it's own. Even more so than the two sequels.

I dunno, 3 feels harder to me but then I beat Castlevania 1 years before 3, and now CV1 feels easy to me most of the time out of sheer muscle memory. Maybe it's the same for you? The levels in CV3 at least feel a lot bigger to me. And of course there's the different paths you can take to make the game longer and shorter. I've never played a solo CV3 game but honestly I can only ever remember 2 or 3 times I've ever really used a partner to get through a section. Alucard's bat ability during the falling blocks in the basement, and Sypha's homing projectiles against the Doppleganger.

[Abnormal Freak]

CV3's difficulty could be in the branching paths and length of the game. You don't really play the same stages over and over again unless you do the same route each time. I've never beaten the game, though someday soon I'd like to hunker down and just go at it.

The first Castlevania I find to be a lot easier and can beat that birch quickly. Of course, to do it quickly requires me to hang on to the holy water for the last couple levels, lol, since that's the cheapest of the cheap subweapon in that game. But even without, it doesn't take a terribly long time to do the last couple stages.

It's a case where familiarity has caused the game to become easy; memorize the enemy patterns and it's a cinch. I've yet to play CV3 enough times to become that familiar with it.

[Belmont legacy]

I've never understood how people could consider CV3 harder than CV1. Maybe if you're playing a solo game, yes. But otherwise I don't see it or experienced it that way. I beat CV3 long before I got all the way through CV1. Ninja Ryukenden 1 is just bullshit unfair hard in a class all it's own. Even more so than the two sequels.

I always had trouble with CV3. I don't know why. What do you mean when you say solo game? Like just playing with Trevor?

[X]

What do you mean when you say solo game? Like just playing with Trevor?

Yes he is. Trevor Belmont on his own definitely adds to the challenge of playing through CV3. I've done it a couple of times but I had to strategize (especially in the much later areas like the doppelganger stage) in order not to be beaten.

[Belmont legacy]

I can't even begin to imagine beating CV3 with just Trevor.  Heck I can only make it to 5A just using Trevor and Sypha. I always thought CV3 was a lot harder because the like Ratty said, the game feels a lot longer and I also found some of the mechanics like gear hopping and pillar jumping (the ones that are like seesaws). To be quite unnerving at times. I really wish I could beat CV3 a long with 4.....and all the other ones. bwahahaha

[Abnormal Freak]

Aside from Grant, I always found the secondary characters kind of annoying and not very fun to play, and so pretty much always played Trevor, so that could be why I find the game tough.

[Dracula9]

Typically, I enjoy a good challenge. I usually stick to the normal mode until I beat a game once, then go back again on the harder modes. I'm also not above switching to Easy (if possible) if the game is kicking my ass hard enough and for long enough. Most of the time power-leveling accomplishes the same basic thing, though.

I'm pretty much okay and on-board with just about any difficulty level (provided the challenge is at least somewhat fair, goddamn Mortal Kombat II final bosses), but I tend to draw the line at what I refer to as the "Dark Souls difficulty."

[shelverton.]

I always pick the easiest difficulty setting since I like my games to be relaxing, not feel like work. Oddly enough, some of my favourite games are things like Dark Souls and the Ghosts'n Goblins franchise... I am generally better at older, sidescrollers than modern games though. People seem to think games are getting easier and easier but I feel the complete opposite. I can beat Castlevania 3 and NES Ninja Gaiden but I can't beat God of War. Or DMC.

[crisis]

i conquered the entire god of war series on the highest difficulty lol

i remember Spiderman y Venom: Maximum Carnage for snes being pretty hard for me. and i remember beating Final Fantasy Tactics with little effort in the 90's but nowadays i just suck at it for some reason. weird huh? lol

[Munchy]

I always start anything new on Normal mode and pretty much never touch Easy, ever. I didn't used to though. Gaemz is praectic.

It's kind of hilarious because I get frustrated really easily, yet I keep coming back to games that punch me in the teeth. I have grown to love the old Resident Evil games for this reason. Of all the games I've ever played, they probably have the longest learning curve that I'm still trying to beat in different ways. I remember my freshman year of high school just deciding that I would learn how to use the damn tank controls if it killed me, starting with Nemesis on the Dreamcast, and I'm still trying to learn the best ways to dodge monsters and save time by going the quickest and most efficient routes.

[Dracula9]

i conquered the entire god of war series on the highest difficulty lol

PROTECT THE FUCKING TRANSLATOR IN 2 OH MY GOD

People seem to think games are getting easier and easier but I feel the complete opposite. I can beat Castlevania 3 and NES Ninja Gaiden but I can't beat God of War. Or DMC.

In that same tangent, I'm a bit of the opposite. I can play most older games with relative ease, but there are certain segments, or games, or tidbits, etc. that I just can't get past; whereas most modern games I can adapt to more easily.

[crisis]

PROTECT THE FUCKING TRANSLATOR IN 2 OH MY GOD

LOL i was stuck on that part for literally weeks dude. nothing but trial & error trial & error until i figured out a good strategy. what i love about the series (and most action games in general) is that after clearing difficult segments like that, it's soooo satisfying!

[Belmont legacy]

I actually agree that games are getting harder. This is gonna sound hilarious but I started Far Cry 3 tonight and wasn't all too impressed. They have this HUGE map (most covered since I just started) and give you next to no weapons.  I marked a tower to take down on my map only to find out it was already taken down. I was like "why the hell is this even displayed on the map in the first place?!" I feel like developers and such are getting SUPER lazy and uncreative with video games so they gotta make them as complicated and HUGE as possible. It's pretty wasteful if you think about it. I mean sure. I LOVE sandbox games. Gta 5 was great (not as good as people made it out to be) but I personally liked skyrim more. Yes skyrim is an RPG but still. So I had the same hopes for far cry 3 UNTIL I started playing it today. I'm only a tad into the game but so far it's nothing mind blowing. With the bounty missions it just says "they were last seen between so and so village and dr what's his faces house." And that leaves the player wondering "where was that guys house again?" It's a waste of time. Not fun. That's where red dead achieved. It didn't show you EXACTLY where an outlaw or legendary animal was, it just hinted in a region and showed you on the map. This in my opinion is the developers being lazy and wasting the players time and money. I can understand if there's certain points you can't access yet (like metroidvania) more in a sense than this. This is just....AWFUL. I enjoyed tomb raider more and it's more linear! XD I'm not saying that games like far cry 3 are bad. They have the potential, just not the execution. I get it's supposed to make you feel like you're stranded on an island and make you hunt and survive but don't waste hours of the players time for 1 upgrade.

i conquered the entire god of war series on the highest difficulty lol

i remember Spiderman y Venom: Maximum Carnage for snes being pretty hard for me. and i remember beating Final Fantasy Tactics with little effort in the 90's but nowadays i just suck at it for some reason. weird huh? lol

Man don't feel bad. I am probably the worst player at DMC. I am terrible. I went and bought the hd collection, got about half way through the first game on normal, rage quit after grinding for upgrades and haven't touched it since. XD

PROTECT THE FUCKING TRANSLATOR IN 2 OH MY GOD

In that same tangent, I'm a bit of the opposite. I can play most older games with relative ease, but there are certain segments, or games, or tidbits, etc. that I just can't get past; whereas most modern games I can adapt to more easily.

Oh god. Resident Evil. I absolutely LOVE resident evil but oh my god. I've been trying to RE play the first re on my DS (deadly silence) since I never finished it back in the day and find myself cursing and quitting A LOT because I'm trying to conserve as much ammo as possible but the controls are so HORRENDOUS AND POOP I can dodge a zombie about 15% of the time and find myself cringing when I realize I gotta backtrack and try to dodge that same zombie and try not to get bit. If I do get bit I usually shut off my DS and revert back to my save. VERY tedious and annoying. -.- then again I could just be trying too hard.

[Nagumo]

Merged all those posts into one for you. 

[Belmont legacy]

Merged all those posts into one for you. 

Oh sweet! Thanks!