A lot of hobbies like gardening, sports, chess require effort, why is it necessary for video games to be easy?
Forcing some challenge gets you to engage with more things rather than taking the easy way out. It’s like bungee jumping (I’d assume), sometimes a push is necessary to experience something new.
Some of my favourite moments were trying Fire Emblem Ironmans, which initially made me go “this is stupid, I’ll regret this, I should reload”, only to change to “this is peak”
If the main difficulty is intentional, then it’s not an artifical barrier, the easy mode is an artificial easener. How easy is easy enough? Some people can’t beat Clair Obscur on the story mode (presumably by not doing side content) In case of gardening, it’d be getting someone to garden for you, and just chilling with the results.
Let’s plays/walkthroughs exists, and only lock you out of interactivity. And interactivity doesn’t mean much if every option beats the game.
Case in point, if I see some post-game superboss with lore behind it, I just look up the thing online.
Options don’t stop you from having those moments in fact they make it more possible for you to find the difficulty for those moments. For you and everyone else.
A lot of hobbies like gardening, sports, chess require effort, why is it necessary for video games to be easy?
Forcing some challenge gets you to engage with more things rather than taking the easy way out. It’s like bungee jumping (I’d assume), sometimes a push is necessary to experience something new.
Some of my favourite moments were trying Fire Emblem Ironmans, which initially made me go “this is stupid, I’ll regret this, I should reload”, only to change to “this is peak”
The problem is with artificially enforced barriers.
If the main difficulty is intentional, then it’s not an artifical barrier, the easy mode is an artificial easener. How easy is easy enough? Some people can’t beat Clair Obscur on the story mode (presumably by not doing side content) In case of gardening, it’d be getting someone to garden for you, and just chilling with the results.
Let’s plays/walkthroughs exists, and only lock you out of interactivity. And interactivity doesn’t mean much if every option beats the game.
Case in point, if I see some post-game superboss with lore behind it, I just look up the thing online.
My point is that it’s inherently artificial.
If you think that gameplay is just meaningless busywork in between cutscenes then sure.
But I am of the opinion that games are not movies just because they are on a screen. They are much closer to tactile or kinetic sculptures.
Gameplay isn’t meaningless busywork.
Tedious and boring gameplay, shrouded under the name “difficulty” is.
If you have to replay the same section over and over, that is the real meaningless busywork.
Nothing about the difficulty level of From Software games is artificially enforced. Like the exact opposite, really.
Options don’t stop you from having those moments in fact they make it more possible for you to find the difficulty for those moments. For you and everyone else.