Why Easy Games Fail Yahtzee's Game Theory

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

Mmmm, a clear enough thesis.

I certainly get Yahtzee's frustration with Dark Souls. I have found it frustrating as well, but I also love it. I eventually worked out how the features of the game work, how to beat bosses, how to use weapons. I've gone back to weapons too, to give them a second go and learn the length, duration and power of their attacks. Dark Souls is not really suited to quick play and a review. It is a longer project, and that is what I prefer in my games. Something that takes a while to master, and has a great replayability curve.

Yahtzee, you have a list of three, but there is at least another factor, time. How long it takes to get the gratification.

 

[Formica Archonis]

Would now be a good time to say I hated Cave Story even though I finished it?

 

[ACman]

On Poacher: That game needs more health drops. It's pretty good in almost every sense but it really needs an easy mode where more bits of edible sausage fly out of the little bunnies when you shoot them.

 

[monkeynohito]

Catharsis would be good. It's just sort of fun fucking around action without pushing or engaging you anywhere on its own.

 

[Podunk]

It's funny how Yahtzee brings up Super Meat Boy in the positive side of hard games. I'm a fan of I Wanna Be The Guy, Cave Story, and Dark Souls, but I absolutely hated Super Meat Boy. The controls were lousy and there was absolutely no Context or Gratification, just obnoxious Challenge

 

[beleester]

Yahtzee, you have a list of three, but there is at least another factor, time. How long it takes to get the gratification.

I think gratification always refers to instant gratification. Gratification seems to refer to things you can respond to without knowledge of the context or challenge. Impressive visuals, big explosions, jokes. If you have to wait, it's probably challenge (you're enjoying it because you had to work hard to make that big explosion) or context (you're enjoying it because you're watching a bad guy get his comeuppance).

If you have to ask "Was that gratifying?" it probably wasn't.

 

[teknoarcanist]

snip

I agree with everything you said except for one thing: That all applies to the original Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox (and Ninja Gaiden Black, possibly to an even greater extent) just as much as Dark Souls. Ninja Gaiden is more than just a game with an arbitrarily high difficultly level, it's built into the game the same way difficulty is built into Dark Souls. The key difference is that Dark Souls has more focus on the environments whilst Ninja Gaiden put an emphasis on exceptionally intelligent enemy AI. Otherwise their approach to difficulty is very similar. For example, as far as boss fights go, I consider the games more or less equals. You know that feeling you get when you go to face Ornstien and Smough? The Alma bossfight in Ninja Gaiden evokes that same feeling. Ninja Gaiden also lends itself very well to that feeling of mastery and the rewards that brings, just like Dark Souls.

As an aside, that is why to this day Ninja Gaiden Black is by far the best game in the series (and IMHO the best action game ever made), because as much as I love NG2, it lost sight of what made the games before special, which is that same thing Dark Souls captures.

Right, I've played (though not beaten) Ninja Gaiden. It's a good game. But my point was that the whole idea of death/dying/struggle/conflict/triumph/etc is built THEMATICALLY into the very core of Dark Souls, in terms of art, story, setting, etc, in a way that makes it become more than the sum of its parts, and ends up having something worthwhile to say. Whereas Ninja Gaiden or DMC is (I wince to use the word "just") a really fun, really challenging action game.

 

[Ace2401]

snip

I agree with everything you said except for one thing: That all applies to the original Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox (and Ninja Gaiden Black, possibly to an even greater extent) just as much as Dark Souls. Ninja Gaiden is more than just a game with an arbitrarily high difficultly level, it's built into the game the same way difficulty is built into Dark Souls. The key difference is that Dark Souls has more focus on the environments whilst Ninja Gaiden put an emphasis on exceptionally intelligent enemy AI. Otherwise their approach to difficulty is very similar. For example, as far as boss fights go, I consider the games more or less equals. You know that feeling you get when you go to face Ornstien and Smough? The Alma bossfight in Ninja Gaiden evokes that same feeling. Ninja Gaiden also lends itself very well to that feeling of mastery and the rewards that brings, just like Dark Souls.

As an aside, that is why to this day Ninja Gaiden Black is by far the best game in the series (and IMHO the best action game ever made), because as much as I love NG2, it lost sight of what made the games before special, which is that same thing Dark Souls captures.

Right, I've played (though not beaten) Ninja Gaiden. It's a good game. But my point was that the whole idea of death/dying/struggle/conflict/triumph/etc is built THEMATICALLY into the very core of Dark Souls, in terms of art, story, setting, etc, in a way that makes it become more than the sum of its parts, and ends up having something worthwhile to say. Whereas Ninja Gaiden or DMC is (I wince to use the word "just") a really fun, really challenging action game.

Well, to some extent, I guess that was my Ninja Gaiden fanboyism speaking. XD

Though if I may, a similar theme does permeate Ninja Gaiden, and that is the theme of honing skill to work towards mastery. That is spoken very clearly in the game design, even down to the differences in difficultly level. As the game progresses, you journey through areas that feel more dangerous than the last visually as well as actually, implying the further skill one must develop to conquer each area. That visual design is also reflected in the enemies you fight, and it's particularly noticeable when you see these more dangerous enemies in areas once thought conquered. It's also worked into the story (flawed though it may be) as well, as it is the story of Ryu's ascension from merely skilled to a true master without peer.

So what I'm really saying is not that NG has the same themes as Dark Souls, but that it does just as well build2ing and presenting its own themes as Dark Souls. I would say that Ninja Gaiden is most definitely more than the sum of its parts, or else I wouldn't have played through it 30-50 times over the years, not to mention all the time I've sunk into mission mode. And if that last statement weren't true, then NG2 would be the better game, as the combat is even better in terms of what you as a player have available to you, which you would think would be the biggest factor with these kinds of games.

Also, I find it telling that I think of Dark Souls as the Ninja Gaiden of RPGs, not just for difficulty, but for the overall experience.

 

[Nomanslander]

Dark Souls has been the best game I've played that has come out in the last five years. That is all I have to say.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

Glad to see I'm not the only one who, when faced with a very frustrating challenge that had been going on for too long and is eating at the fun, takes a break (sometimes as long as a day) before coming back with a clear/fresh mind. It's surprising how often that works.

 

[DugMachine]

Look at the current best-selling games. Modern Fps garbage, WoW and similar MMo's and RPG #1742674. What do these all have in common? They're really easy. The only difficult and somewhat successful game I can think of is Dark Souls.

Sorry but my inner fan boy is raging. WoW is easy to a certain extent yes, but when you do hardmodes and compete in PvP its pretty challenging. Maybe not so much as dark souls as its hard pretty much ALL throughout but WoW is no where as easy as point n shoot pew pew you die I win FPSs

 

[joest01]

Just a note to all fellow Dark Souls fans.

Demon's Souls is even better. Don't agree? You're wrong!

I you havent already, do yourselves a favor and play it before the servers shut down (May31)!

On a separate note: Rayman Origins is another epitome of context challenge gratification!

 

[NamesAreHardToPick]

Demon's Souls had a better world and enemies, but Dark Souls is a huge improvement in terms of game design. Any Dark Souls fans that haven't played Demon's Souls yet need to, no question. The best thing ever of course would be adding all of the Demon's Souls areas as Dark Souls DLC.

The "difficult" thing about the Souls games isn't that you get killed a lot. I think I get killed more in Deus Ex and Metal Gear Solid, it's that it makes your deaths count... you lose your experience and your humanity and the game saves it like that. In other games, I'll throw my character's life away rather than waste one sniper rifle bullet or break my perfect sneaking streak or fire so much as one more shot than I need to. There are no strings attached to rewinding the game and trying over, and in comparison those gaming experiences are devoid of any kind of tension compared to playing a Souls title. Yeah I want to make my headshot count so I can quit retrying this section and get on with the story, but I don't *need* it to count so I don't have to deal with the horrible consequences of what happens if it doesn't.

 

[Tanakh]

I might be on the minority here, but for me the gratification is mainly in beating the challenge. When i was younger it wasn't so, i did expected some kind of extra gratification, then I played WoW and after years of raiding learnt to play for the joy of playing.

Nowdays i almost only do games that have engaging gameplay, and playing the next level is the reward. That is the reason i have problems ending AAA games, grow bored far too soon in most of them.

Also, i concour with previous posters, this week's post is too long just to basically say:

"challenge is a balance."

 

[Arcane Azmadi]

I always try to avoid ending a gaming session while I'm still trying to get past a challenge, because it'll make it harder to start the next session. I'll probably end up procrastinating and waste half an hour constantly updating my Twitter feed hoping someone will praise me or propose marriage. And if I end up stopping playing altogether, the game will go on to occupy a very low step of my critical ziggurat, as happened with Demon/Dark Souls.

Yeah, this is exactly right. The same thing has happened to me with a lot of the games I've played, which is why I have so many half-complete games on my list. Devil May Cry 3, for example, is infamously difficult (at least the initial western release was, due to a cock-up making the Japanese version's 'hard' difficulty setting into the western version's 'normal' and I'm too stubborn to go down to 'easy') and I got stuck on the famously annoying double-boss fight against Agni and Rudra. After trying several times to beat them I gave up for a while, intending to come back to it later- and never did. DMC3 has been sitting in my uncompleted pile for YEARS now, despite the fact that I ostensibly enjoyed it up to that point.

On the flip side, the "gratification for overcoming a challenge" is perfectly accurate. When I was stuck for ages on a particularly difficult song in Guitar Hero, you can only imagine my thrill when something just "clicks" and I work my way past that particularly agonising guitar solo and play the last note. Once, when I was playing Guitar Hero 2, I had a go at 'The Beast and the Harlot' [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnHrhaZI4xg] just so I could show my brother how ridiculously hard it was and how I would probably never be able to beat it- and went on to actually beat the song for the first time ever. That was when I knew that nothing could ever stop me as long as I persevered. At least until I got to the last set of Guitar Hero 3 on expert, which is another example of BAD challenge balance as 'Raining Blood' and 'Cliffs of Dover' are just RETARDEDLY difficult and shut me down completely, preventing me from ever completing that game.

 

[Mister Sinewave]

The concept of "Gratification" as one of the three measures is pretty clear to me, but how to re-define it might be helped by an observation I have that I think holds water:

The more a game's bits work work together in unexpected and interactively cool ways, the greater the game's Gratification is likely to be.

These are things that make you unexpectedly go "Whoa!! Ahahahahaaa that was awesome!" and want to keep playing to try it again or see more. For example, the first time you jump off a motorcycle in motion in a GTA game, and it just happens to plow into the enemy who was shooting you. You know it's plain old Gratification when even if you die as a result, it doesn't dilute your fun.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

"I will give this a negative review because it was too hard for me" strikes me as missing the point.

The same could be said for games that are inherently easy. Maybe that games design focus wasn't challenge, but rather fun.

Ninja Gaiden 3 fails here though because although it's satisfying to rip someones limb off, it can't carry the game on this merit alone.

 

[teknoarcanist]

Devil May Cry 3, for example, is infamously difficult (at least the initial western release was, due to a cock-up making the Japanese version's 'hard' difficulty setting into the western version's 'normal'.

Dude.

Seriously?

Wow. That explains so much.

 

[Bluecho]

"Will you be my new daddy?" No...so contrived...and forced...must...resist...

D'AWWWWWW! Damnit! I can't stand up to moe of that magnitude, it's just too strong!