What games have you given up on due to difficulty?

[LookingGlass]

I really hate to not see the end of a game I've put significant time into, so I usually stick with it even when it gets crap toward the end or it gets crazy hard. There are a few exceptions though:

I gave Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams the finger tonight after trying to beat the final boss about 25 times. 25's not that many, but I was also convinced that the game had bugged out at this point. To kill this boss, you basically have to avoid a flaming rock he throws at you for a minute or so until it loses its flame, then jump on it to send it toward the boss to hurt him (3x kills him I believe). Well, I did that once on try #5 or so. On my remaining ~20 attempts though, the rock kept disappearing as soon as the flame went out. I had no desire to play through the entie level again to find out if it was a bug, especially since the boss was pretty damn hard even when things were working properly.

I never did finish a campaign in Shogun 2. I managed to take Kyoto and become Shogun... but there was no way in hell I was going to hold it for a year, let alone hold all my other regions who had to donate their armies to my Kyoto takeover.

And lastly, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (PS3 re-release). It seems you can get screwed in this game if you don't build up your arsenal in the right way. I got to the second battle with Peace Walker with only a crap quality missile launcher and no way to upgrade it before the fight. I could barely make a dent in it before dying.

Interestingly, I actually rather liked all of those games until those points.

So what have you given up on because it was just too hard?

 

[krazykidd]

Because they were too hard : none. I like hard games . I like games that make me angry to the point of wanting to tear out my hair . Case and point SMT:Nocturn hard mode . The number of times i died right in front of the save station is ridiculous . It's as if the game knew i was low on everything and needed to save/heal and as soon as i got in front of the door , ambushed by enemies , sometimes had to do 2-3 battles . I died A LOT like that.

Games i didn't finish because i'm too retarded to wrap my head around the combat system ? Two.

Record of Agrest war : Zero
Resonance of Fate .

Seriously i got 5 hours into each without knowing what the fuck i was doing and then started getting roflstomped by EVERYTHING. Like " Tutorial is over , now show me what you learned " , but i learned NOTHING.

 

[veloper]

There's this escort mission in VVVVVV, where you have this crewmember Red who needs to be saved, but first you have to get Red to follow you through a lethal obstacle course.

The first stretch is annoying but doable, with Red erraticly following you at a certain distance. Then you get to three moving platforms over a spike pit. The jumps for your character alone are somewhat tricky by the game's standards up till that point and Red just has no sense of self-preservation. A shame. Fun game up till that point, but I've no inclination to put up with that kind of escorting bullshit.

 

[Guffe]

Due to the difficulty not really any since I've played through all the games I'ev started (as far as I can remember) but Tales of Symphonia for the GameCube is a game I never finished when I tried it on the hardest dificulty, THAT WAS HARD!

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume and Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings.

For the latter I'm probably just not good at reacting quickly in RTS as seen in Star/Warcraft, but the turn-based Valkyrie Profile is complete balls-to-the-wall from the second chapter onwards. Worse, it has escort missions with your standard suicidal AI character who fails the mission if they die.

I also didn't like the fact that your character's special moves triggered randomly, making it difficult to predict how much damage you'll do in a given round, which is important since you're required to inflict a certain amount of Overkill damage in every mission or else face a nearly unbeatable ghost enemy in addition to all the regular ones in your next mission.

 

[tippy2k2]

I really really wanted to like this game...

I made thread [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.401569-Poll-Will-you-drop-the-difficulty-if-youre-having-trouble?page=1] after thread [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.403215-Should-I-keep-going-with-The-Witcher-2-mild-spoilers#16657263] trying to convince myself that I should keep going with it and getting tips...

The Witcher 2

The difficulty level was just not fun and the deaths I was constantly having just felt cheap. The straw that finally broke the camels back was this fight I just got into where I was fighting this guy and his thugs to get a symbol of courage. However, Geralt didn't think the guys threat of "DIE!" was very strong for he takes his sweet fucking time to pull out his sword. The bad guy has no reservations about this and so I kept starting the fight with at least 1/4 of my health gone (1/2 if Geralt decided to take his sweet time to roll; something he also likes to do).

The game talks about being prepared and taking potions before going into a fight but you don't know when you're going to run into something strong enough to use up your potions on and when you do, you can't use potions at that point. The game became a "Save", "Run into an enemy that would murder me", then reload and put the necessary potions on. Repeat.

Hell, even the tips I was given kind of demonstrate the broken difficulty of the game. Roll away and throw bombs at people. Yeah...run away isn't the sign of a bad-ass warrior. Stab, roll, stab, roll, stab, roll...this is just taking advantage of the broken combat, not a fight. Even then, it felt like people would swing and miss while I was rolling but I would still take the damage.

Ugh...I so wanted to like this game but I'm just sick of dying from bullshit.

 

[shrekfan246]

Snip

How far in did you get, perchance?

The prologue and first chapter have an insane difficulty curve, but after that it actually eases up quite a fair bit.

OT: Not really so much because of difficulty, but most older CRPGs from the early 2000's. The hybrid games that use a real-time action combat system but still rely on dice-rolls to determine whether you hit the enemy or not piss me off, and the "Miss-Miss-Miss-Miss-Miss-Miss-Hit-Miss-Miss-Miss-Miss-Hit" style of Baldur's Gate frustrates me to no end for how artificially it extends the length of combat. Even with how fast they make the swings, bad luck means that the first goblin you run across could kill your entire team (slight exaggeration, perhaps). I don't like that.

 

[tippy2k2]

How far in did you get, perchance?

The prologue and first chapter have an insane difficulty curve, but after that it actually eases up quite a fair bit.

I kept hearing that in one of the threads (in fact, you might have been someone who mentioned that

Spoiler: Mild spoiler to explain where I'm at in the game

I got as far as the "Conspiracy Theory" quest against King Henselt (so Chapter 2). The specific guy I was fighting was the one in a basement cellar who has some special armor I need to do the ritual thingy (Vinson Traut).

Basically, the combat isn't very good, a story that I don't care about, and a difficulty that just feels cheap is why I'm dropping The Witcher 2.

 

[Squiddles]

After a while Demon's Souls finally took its toll on me and I just had to give up, wasn't having fun anymore and the interesting challenges I kept trying to talk myself through eventually turned into "******* **** YOU PIECE OF **** SHOW YOU WHO'S ******* WITH ***** IN THE ****** **** ********** MONKEYS!".

So yeah, Demon's Souls for me! <.<

 

[shrekfan246]

How far in did you get, perchance?

The prologue and first chapter have an insane difficulty curve, but after that it actually eases up quite a fair bit.

I kept hearing that in one of the threads (in fact, you might have been someone who mentioned that

Spoiler: Mild spoiler to explain where I'm at in the game

I got as far as the "Conspiracy Theory" quest against King Henselt (so Chapter 2). The specific guy I was fighting was the one in a basement cellar who has some special armor I need to do the ritual thingy (Vinson Traut).

Basically, the combat isn't very good, a story that I don't care about, and a difficulty that just feels cheap is why I'm dropping The Witcher 2.

Ah, well, if you're that far in and still can't deal with it then it's probably for the best. It was far earlier than that when I stopped having too much difficulty with the combat. Generally speaking, keeping Quen up at all times and using a health-regen potion any time I enter a new area I haven't explored is enough to keep me alive.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I almost always eventually stop playing Fantasy General because it gets ball crushingly unfair towards the end. Every few years I revisit it, and I think "Oh, this isn't so hard now! My skills of a gamer have increased!" and chortle my way through sections I'd previously remembered as hard. Then I hit the same fucking wall again, and think "Oh right, now I remember" and put it down for another five years.

Some of the Elven Legacy games have the same problem. They just loooove to stack the deck against you, to such an absurd degree that they just become wearisome to play.

Basically, the combat isn't very good, a story that I don't care about, and a difficulty that just feels cheap is why I'm dropping The Witcher 2.

Tippy I am ashamed of you. Commander Tippy, quitting because of a hard fight? I never would've imagined it.

 

[DanielBrown]

Peace Walker as well.
Got to some tanker boss that seemed way too hard so soon in the game. Tried different strategies, farmed some members for my research lab, looked up strategies online, tried co-op(found one guy, but he left... then nothing D, so I gave up.
Started the game up a few months later since I really wanted to give it another shot, but replaying the same maps for farming purposes was so dull it only lasted an hour.

Also gave up on Jak II/III. Jak II because it could be really unforgiving with check points and an aim system that was retarded(currently stuck on a turrent section where I can't get the scope to move the way I want to). Jak III because the races are close to impossible to finish and it seems that's all the game is about. Trial and error gets sickening quickly for me.

 

[tippy2k2]

Basically, the combat isn't very good, a story that I don't care about, and a difficulty that just feels cheap is why I'm dropping The Witcher 2.

Tippy I am ashamed of you. Commander Tippy, quitting because of a hard fight? I never would've imagined it.

Well I probably should have been a bit more elaborate on why I'm quitting...

I'm not quitting because it's difficult (or that's not the only reason at least)

I played through Demon Souls. I own Dark Souls (and will be playing it shortly). I played XCOM on Iron Man mode (as Gigastar knows . I'm going through Fire Emblem: Awakening on Hard with perma-death on. Tippy loves himself a challenge. As an Achievement Whore, I am well versed in hard difficulty since playing on hard gets you an achievement!

A challenge, however, for the sake of challenge is not good enough for me. The challenge has to be accompanied by one of two things:

1. A combat system I enjoy (see XCOM/Fire Emblem/Demon Souls)
2. A story that I want to complete (...uh....Fire Emblem I suppose? I don't believe there's been a game that's really hard that I kept playing because I wanted to know what was going to happen)

I understand that a lot of people loved those two things about Witcher 2 but I am not one of those people. I feel that the combat is just...a'ight at best. It's not bad but it's not good either. I could not care any less about what's happening to Geralt and friends but then again, I missed Witcher 1 so maybe that is more of an issue than people were giving it credit for.

 

[acewolf1569]

I've never given up on any games because they're hard, but sometimes I do have to take a break from them. My first playthrough of Dark Souls I got stuck on killing the Four Kings, so I had to take a break from it for a while.

 

[aguspal]

Um.. pretty much never.

At least, what I consider games with LEGIT difficulty. As in, no one hit kills from nowhere shit. If I DID abandon one of those games, its usually for other reasons other than difficulty. I love challenging games, particulary the FAIR but hard ones.



Too bad the Soul series looks pretty damn fucking boring (And also a crappy port in PC didnt help. Yeah I know MODS MODS but the devs should be the ones that bring to me an actually PLAYABLE game, not the modders), because otherwise it LOOKED like it was something for me. Oh well.

 

[EHKOS]

I haven't beaten Dark Souls yet, but I haven't given up, just taking a break. (Over that break I will accidentally forget how to play and come back at a disadvantage)
I'm close to throwing Megaman 3 out the window though. I haven't beaten one stage (Although I got close on Magnet Man).
I quit Friends of Mineral Town a long time ago because for some reason I couldn't raise any of the women's love meters up at all, and I couldn't get down very far in the mine without passing out. I bought Back to Nature recently though and will try to do better.

Can't remember any others that I quit for DIFFICULTY. Although I quit a few games because I lost interest.

 

[Dimitriov]

Because it's hard? Never.

What an odd notion.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Well I probably should have been a bit more elaborate on why I'm quitting...

I'm not quitting because it's difficult (or that's not the only reason at least)

I played through Demon Souls. I own Dark Souls (and will be playing it shortly). I played XCOM on Iron Man mode (as Gigastar knows . I'm going through Fire Emblem: Awakening on Hard with perma-death on. Tippy loves himself a challenge. As an Achievement Whore, I am well versed in hard difficulty since playing on hard gets you an achievement!

A challenge, however, for the sake of challenge is not good enough for me. The challenge has to be accompanied by one of two things:

1. A combat system I enjoy (see XCOM/Fire Emblem/Demon Souls)
2. A story that I want to complete (...uh....Fire Emblem I suppose? I don't believe there's been a game that's really hard that I kept playing because I wanted to know what was going to happen)

I understand that a lot of people loved those two things about Witcher 2 but I am not one of those people. I feel that the combat is just...a'ight at best. It's not bad but it's not good either. I could not care any less about what's happening to Geralt and friends but then again, I missed Witcher 1 so maybe that is more of an issue than people were giving it credit for.

I personally loved the story in The Witcher 2, but you're certainly not the first person to complain about it. I suppose at the end of the day it's a matter of taste. I remember much brouhaha before Dragon Age Origins was released about how the game was "inspired by dark fantasy and the works of George R.R. Martin", and aside from stealing The Night's Watch lock, stock and barrel there really wasn't more than the faintest whiff of Martin in that game. It was a lot of nonsense that could've come straight out of a children's fantasy tale. Witcher 2 felt, to me, like the game DA advertised itself as. Dense, dour, morally ambiguous, and full of political skullduggery. Yes, there is a lot of "Oi, this is a metaphor for racism, guv'nah!", and the game occasionally seems to delight in its potty mouth, but so many RPG's are basically Bobby's First Adventure that I have an easy time forgiving Witcher 2 its foibles.

The combat was meh. I know the exact fight you're referring to and it was indeed mildly annoying...I remember it took a few tries, mostly because of the enclosed space and number of enemies.

Totally off topic, but you need to get up on some Jagged Alliance 2, Tippy. Yes, it's an older game, but it's still the best tactical game ever made. I think you'd love it. Unless you've already played it, in which case...carry on.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

I played Demon's souls once. I hated it.

More specifically, I quit not because it was too hard, exactly, but because it was not fun. I had seen my brother play it many times, and I knew how punishingly difficult it is, but he thought it ws fun so I tried it. I expected to get tired very quickly of dying and losing all progress, and I was right.

So yes, I quit when I decided the game was too hard, but it wasn't like quitting a game I had enjoyed because I just couldn't stand it anymore after a long slog through frustrating combat. I just played for an hour and found that the difficulty was too much for me, and nothing else about the game compelled me to try soldiering through.

Thing is, if I do like a game and meet with a maddingly hard fight or struggle with awkward or difficult combat, I will immediately lower my shoulder and charge into the game. I hate to be beaten by a video game. I hate it so much. And if I have any investment in the game, I will keep at it, no matter how many walls I punch, until I beat it.