Veni Vedi Vici

[CleverNickname]

When I beat VeniVidiVici I yelled out "YES!" in orgasmic triumph. Several times. Over and over. At 4am. I never went to bed that happy. I woke up yelling "awesome".

It was hard as hell, but so obviously doable that you couldn't help but enjoy the challenge. Lots of games get that aspect of difficulty completely wrong. I usually don't bother with hard modes.

I think what made the challenge so great was
1: A completed run takes only 10 seconds (count it in the video)
2: There's no element of randomness. There's nothing standing between you and the end except your own skill. Sure, it's mercilessly unforgiving, and it requires a lot of muscle memory, but after that it's all about doing. There's no cheating a.i., nothing unpredictable, just pure skill.
3: IT'S RIGHT FUCKING THERE. It will not stand! It must be taken!

So very true!
1) makes the triumph sweet as there is no build-up, no "oh, I'm gonna make it, I'm gonna make it!!". You just start and then you've made it.
2) makes it awesome because everyone of us can draw the contrast to all the bullshit "difficulty" many games throw at us these days. I'm angrier at easier bits in other games that took me less time simply because I know it's bad design.

and on point 3: Many of the easier trinkets I missed on my first run and just went "eh, I'll get it later". This one I had to have, because those couple of pixels will not keep me away from my prize!

Anyone who thinks "oh, they just wanted to make it hard" has no idea what they're talking about.

Honestly, I haven't said this much about a game since ... Star Wars Galaxies

 

[HT_Black]

NB4 Kai--oh, too late.
There you go. It's almost as bad as IWBTG.

What the hell was that!? Thats overly cheap!

Try playing Dawn of War 2 on Primarch difficulty. You'll realize just why the space marines are fighting a losing war.
Also, this.

 

[subject_87]

About 90% of Super Meat Boy.

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

There doesn't seem to be much "Vici" going on there (or "Veni" for that matter, unless you count the spawning and respawning).

Well, I guess the hardest technical challenge I've ever attempted is CoD4 on Veteran difficulty. Beat it all but Mile High Club (one time I was in the midst of the trigger pulling animation to kill the last terrorist when the clock ran out).

 

[Outright Villainy]

There doesn't seem to be much "Vici" going on there (or "Veni" for that matter, unless you count the spawning and respawning).

Try finishing it yourself and then telling me there isn't some vici going on there.

I AM GOD OF MY DOMAIN.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

NB4 Kai--oh, too late.


There you go. It's almost as bad as IWBTG.

That reminds me of a YouTuber I watch, ProtonJon.

He LPs romhacks, getting from start to finish, and you hear him screaming about it most of the way.

 

[CleverNickname]

TLs4LP > ProtonJon

 

[bodyguarddied]

Mario Kart: Double Dash

Not so much actual difficulty as Fake Difficulty [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FakeDifficulty], real difficulty, like that I can take... ok, I can't do it... then I just activate temporary ADD and play a new game. Fake difficulty just makes me want to smash my controller.

Fake difficulty makes the game my mortal enemy, and I WILL destroy whatever cheating opposition it throws at me... after I'm done I'll never play the game again, though.

Damn you sneaking a link to TV Tropes in there. There goes the next two hours....

OT: The worst one I can think of is the tutorial level for the original Driver. I shit you not, that took me YEARS to beat. The sad thing is the rest of the game is pretty easy for me, but the goddamn tutorial....