It's a hack n slash if ya only use like 2-combos, sure. But it's a visceral fucking orgasm if you learn how to use the moves in conjunction with each other. All DMC's 3 & up are like that. Hard af but fuuuuck is it fun when you get good. Isn't really hard after that, but it is hard to put down.
Because I want the interaction. I want to make choices. Experiences can be fun, even if you can't really lose. Going to an amusement park is fun, even though there is very little risk of dying or whatever. Also, "You can't lose" has very different thresholds for different people. What I consider a challenging but fun difficulty might be painfully easy for others, especially in action games where I have little practice. On the other hand, the puzzles I enjoy are just frustratingly complex for others. Different difficulty levels recognize that different people enjoy different things and allows them to adapt the game to their needs. It's really no different than different shoe sizes. Sure, that size 35 would be incredibly painful to wear for me and that size 48 looks comically large but that doesn't make them pointless. They just aren't for me.
In Star Fox 64, the difficulty of the game is completely determined by how well you perform right from the beginning. If you're a kid who's never played it before, there's no way you're gonna save Falco in time AND be smart enough to fly through all the arches successfully. But, if you do, the game says "Hey, you think you're hot stuff? Try out this level instead where there's hundreds of enemies." And if you're still a billy badass and kill 100 of them before the level is over, you get to take the big boy path. The whole experience is determined by your skill and if you fuck up, it sends you back to the easier path as if they're saying "Maybe you're not ready for this level yet". I love it!
resident evil 4 does a bit of a similar thing, where the game's difficulty scales based how you're doing. If you're stuck at one batch of enemies, you might eventually see a few less the next time. Best of all, they kept this secret so players didn't know the game was essentially cheating for them.
@@thesnazzmaster i think dynamic difficulties like that are a tough balance. Cause I absolutely hate it when I notice it. For the most part, i think it‘s better if the difficulty once you enter a level is set, but depending on you performance the difficulty of the next one may vary. Because if you really try to beat a tough level and the you notice the game beats itself for you, it takes all the fun out of it.
that would irritate the frig out of me if i'm trying to beat a level and the game secretly says "awww, poor baby, here, let me hold your hand" and twists a few knobs behind the curtain and just lets me win. .the thing about old school nintendo is that it was unashamedly unapologetic. it would beat you up and never ease off. that being said, "nes hard" is kind if a misnomer, because there are some really fricking hard games out there today and i went back and played some old nes games and they were fairly easy by comparison. . .
Kirby Epic Yarn is the perfect game to play with someone that likes cute stuff but has no experience with videogames at all. It has a little something for everyone.
This hits so hard for Uncharted 4. The hardest difficulty is straight up broken, and it takes away 90% of your options in both combat and stealth in the second half of the game. Swinging with your grapple? Shooting and sliding? Melee? Forget it, you need to figure out a solid strat (which is almost always going to be completely cover based) and stick to it completely or you will never beat it. I remember I would dedicate hours or days if I could manage it trying to beat singular levels, and either rage quitting if it didn't pan out or saving and turning off the game if it did. Then you go one difficulty lighter and you get your variety back, but the challenge disappears. Naughty Dog must've seriously never playtested the hardest difficulty.
That’s why difficulty modes honestly suck. I understand why they’re needed and I’m not saying the video game industry should do away with them, but I personally enjoy video games without difficulty settings. When there’s no difficulty meter, the devs are able to cater a specific experience. This works for open world games as well, like everyone talks about difficulty settings in dark souls, but no one mentions how there’s no difficulty setting in Zelda BoTW or many popular Nintendo games.
Also the difficulty spike near the end of the game (at least for me) was absolutely ridiculous. I started the game on normal, part way through I changed it to hard and then went to easy for the last 2-3 levels of the game because it was so annoying I just wanted it over with. I love an extra challenge for the end of a game to up the stakes but it just felt kinda janky and ruined the momentum for me:/
while i disliked the last of us 2, i think naughty dog actually learned their lesson when making it. the amount of versatility you have to cater the game to yourself was great.
Difficulty shouldn't be solely based on damage. It should incorporate how intelligent the enemies are, where they're placed in the level, and how many there are.
In Doom 2016, they not only increased the damage enemies deal on higher difficulties, but also how many of them can attack the player at once. It was quite smart.
"How many there are" also falls under the cheap, "scale the numbers up" type of difficulty tho. Even where they are placed could be dumb if they are placed in some unreachable areas, thus making them more akin to stage hazards and/or removing you from that "anywhere the enemy can go, I can go as well" environment.
Barfing Chicken and not only about enemies. Also the level plays a huge role like the platform ins, hidden items, gameplay mechanics and player dexterity. But artificially making games difficult by bad controls or weird schemes like the tank movement of RE sucks also
I don't think you should compare difficulty to intelligence in any way. That's more condescending than changing the numbers. Also, dumber enemies are not necessarily easier to play against. They can do all sorts of dumb shit that no reasonable enemy can be expected to do, but still works somehow, and yeah, being killed by an objectively dumb move from an enemy is pretty frustrating if you ask me. I would rather just adjust the numbers or simply scrap conventional difficulty settings completely.
I beat halo 1 on legendary about 7 minutes ago and I can confirm that halo 1 on legendary changes a man. My friend and I played every level on legendary over the course of 2 years and we were as broken as a player who plays 3 minutes of league of legends by the end of it
Literally just finished it on legendary for the first time myself. Had to come back to this video as I always remember the quote, “Halo one on legendary changes a man”
I mean to me as someone who recently started to completion game I still enjoy them... Although trying to finish Uncharted trilogy on crushing made me a mad man rolling around...
@@legalza0843 Yep, that's what I have recently been doing: If the game is still fun to the end, I would complete it 100% If I have finished all important quests and all secrets except the 900 korok seeds in Zelda BotW, I won't even bother searching for them neither legitimately in-game nor through guides; they rarely provide any satisfaction after solving their "puzzles".
Halo 1 on Legendary, co-op with my best friend back when it first came out - THAT was the height of my 'perfect difficulty' in gaming. As long as one of us lived, the other could respawn and we'd continue on. It took us about 2 hours per level (3 for the Library), across several days after school, and it was amazing.
While it does have some totally bullshit difficulty spikes at times (looking at you Capra Demon) I do agree with you. I think DS3 almost nailed it, hopefully the DLC will make the game the masterpiece it deserves to be.
there's a difference between a game being challenging and a game being unfair. with dark souls, it's mostly from being unfair and poorly designed. that's why darksouls is no different from bubsy the cat. but hey, if you like it, good for you, no need to fight about it.
Yes and no, the games really nail it at doing a fair, challenging difficulty, but if i had to put as much focus and effort in every single game as i did with the souls series, i would be dead of stress xD
Hades comes along and does it right imo, the difficulty selection feels incredibly natural when you start out just learning weapons and stuff, and the pact modifiers actually change how enemies act and how you play I've also seen people say that breaking checkpoints in Shovel Knight is a sort of natural difficulty selection which I really agree with Good vid
There was a good video comparing post game Hades to post 1 win Dead cells. Hades has the pact of punishment and Dead cells has the boss cell system. While Hades does do a pretty good job at introducing interesting custom difficulties it's not the best at them as explained in that video. Worth a watch.
Also in shovel knight, what you choose to spend your money on determines difficulty. Like you can get more health, more magic, and so the game becomes easier because of that. So there's really a lot of variety in difficulty level depending on the player.
I really love Celeste's level of difficulty. Each level felt so hard when I did it the first time and took an hour or longer to complete, but you improve so much by completing it that when you go back to earlier levels they feel so much easier. And there's also so much endgame content that's there as an option. If you just wanna beat the main game and reach the top of the mountain, you can stop there and get a satisfying ending. If you wanna keep going they have B-sides and bonus levels that are hard as shit and unlock more content. I think it's an amazing balance of challenging players while allowing them to choose how much effort they want to put in, without any worries about not getting the "true" experience like Dunkey describes in this video.
This might be my favorite dunk video. I always remember it being much longer, he just says so much with so little and really has so much good opinions to share with the community.
Coming back to watch this after seeing Dunkeys opinion on Elden Ring and I'm really impressed how consistent his opinion is six years later. All of his criticisms of the difficulty spikes in Elden ring ring true in this video as well. When a game crosses the line from difficult to TOO difficult, it removes any potential for creativity and forces you to use exploits or boring meta builds and the game stops being fun
Elden Ring was never too difficult, it’s difficult at times but not cheap or unfair to where you get angry. Nioh on the other hand the entire game is a massive difficulty spike where you get 1 comboed by trash mobs and 2 hit by every boss even when with all your stats in vitality and heavy armor equipped, it’s like that the entire game 😅
@@canontheory Never too difficult my ass. It's a great game, but you need like 5 billion HP late game to not get ohko'd by everything, some bosses are definitely unfair
@@Hollow_Tim your probably referring to mohg and malenia? Those are the only 2 I can think of that you need an absurd amount of hp to not get 1 comboed. They are optional end game bosses though so it makes sense why they are so hard.
@@canontheory Did you not watch Dunkey's Elden Ring video? I think he showed/explained pretty well why the damage enemies do is too high (not even just bosses). I didn't mind Malenia being hard. It was more some of the main story bosses, most of all Maliketh that felt like complete BS. With Malenia even though I died more I at least felt like I kept getting better at the fight.
I mean the range of Roadhog's fucking chain is the most elusive shit in the goddamn game. Like your enemy could be 2 feet in fron of you and somehow you miss. But, other Roadhog's can snatch you halfway across the fucking map then he'll do that shitty shoot and melee thing. That chain is fucking OP and needs a nerf but apparentlu they can't decide what the fuck to do with McCree
Despite dunkey being centered in comedic oriented gaming videos, he does have a lot of criteria because he has played a lot of games, I also liked his "Bad Graphics" video.
I hate when I go to like the video only to remember that I've already seent his video and liked it loooong ago. Dunkey, your videos are always so genuine. Never stop being so awesome!
Bro I have been surfing through your videos I hope you see this but no matter what anyone says you’re a great game reviewer. You put great discussion as well as subjective point of view and all with the great and amazing laughs of comedy I cannot wait to keep watching and thank you so much for already so much content.
New Super Mario Brothers Wii is a tough game. Old school tough. So you better bring your butt-stomping A-game, as this will test even the most seasoned platform veterans. You've still got to run, jump, bounce, glide and swim your way from point A to point B while avoiding environmental obstacles and enemies. This task requires increasingly accurate timing, intricate planning and ninja-like reflexes as you progress through the game's 8 worlds.
Dunkey dude, I almost NEVER watch RU-vid videos related to gaming. There came a time where I'd heard "Hey what's up guys" so many times that I swore I'd never watch a gaming video on RU-vid again. Then I found your channel. You perfectly combine comedy and critique with enough personal flair to keep me coming back for more. 5/5
Mass Effect is definitely one of my all-time favorite games and especially the difficulty-modes felt SO well done. That Insane/Insanity mode was really challenging as well as rewarding. Yet I never felt like I had to bug my way through a fight, there was always a way to play it better or use the map in a better way.
Lmfao, Dunkey was a hardcore player before he got banned for flaming, he's extremely salty about it too. You can just feel his distinct hate for the game. Obviously, you might as well take it as satire because his only reason for hating the game is getting banned.
@@dadrumma8608 He stopped playing because he felt like RIot wasn't treating him well, he expected to be treated like a god since he was one of the first few creators to make videos on the game
+Glaceon there's not much to know, most all of them suck but eminem, there's a reason people say rap is crap, the only guy to do it right is a white man, instead of shitty people, conicidence? I think not.
TomboTime Yeah, I like playing really challenging games, but kirby epic yarn is really relaxing and a big stress reliever for me. Plus, it's actually a pretty good game.
I think that spelunky is all about learning its systems and how those systems intetaract with eaçh other.If you get to know this game and not rush through it , the difficulty is perfect.
@@houseinmotion5357 Oh, definitely. I'm at 1,000+ deaths and I've learned a lot from every single one. What I love most about the game is that as much as you improve your skills the game still finds a way to hand it to you so it never gets too stale.
I beat the original a dozen or so times. The console remake I've beaten the original boss about a dozen times as well, but I only made it to hell 2-3 times and was never able to spend enough time learning all of the new stuff to be able to get passed for the first stage of hell and beat the harder part of the game
I beat Last of Us on it’s hardest difficulty after about a million deaths. It was an absolutely sadistic experience, and it’s something that I’d never wanna do again. Then I went back on Hard difficulty and whooped the game’s ass. I see your point here
any new released character for any game will usually be broken or overpowered in some way... part of the marketing of a new character. nobody wants the new thing if it's status quo or less. you want something people will bite on to. so they tend to release them like that and then later on patch them once the hype dies down. kind of really shitty especially in games with rank systems
@@soullessSiIence But they change a man. Don't get me wrong, Halo 2 on Legendary was fuckin hell, like actually fucking infuriating. But once I finished it, I felt so accomplished.
@@soullessSiIence halo 2 on legendary is overrated. Its hard dont get me wrong, but its challenging in a good way(like ds, bloodborne, sekiro, nioh, etc). You have to be strategic, conserve br and plasma ammo, and have to know almost every jackal spot on each map. It pushes you to your limits, and when you finish the game, its freaking awesome. The only time i was frustrated during my legendary playtrough a few years ago, was on the outskirts map. That shit is nuts on legendary:P
@@markfeher2493 No, Halo 2 Legendary is hard because of bad game design. It was rushed faster than the developers hoped (along with a ton of other mishaps in the development), so tons of ideas were scrapped, and difficulty couldn't be well tested. Master Chief/Arbiter are the second weakest entities in the game (besides the Flood infection forms, which die in one hit), the enemies have ridiculous time-to-kills, and can be so fast to target and kill Chief. I love Halo 2 to death, but it's legendary is severely broken. TheActMan did a great video on why Halo 2 Legendary is difficult. Halo Reach has a great Legendary, it's tough and the enemies are smart, but they usually don't drop a player within 2 seconds.
I love coming back to this video and remembering that as much as Dunkey makes great points about how difficulty in a game should be crafted, it was when LOL decided to ban him for no real good reason, and it's just as much a video for him to shit on that grindfest, as good as it can be sometimes. LOVE YOU DUNKEY xD
it really isn't that bad. I'd say Halo Reach and even Halo 3 at times can be worse. Halo 2 still reigns supreme for why-the-fuck-is-this-so-hard though
Cuphead really is the perfect balance of difficulty imo. It's frustrating and difficult at times, but everything is FAIR. Like, I didn't get one shotted by a random dude in the bushes that i couldn't even see. I got bombarded by a bunch of beautifully animated shit that I could have dodged.
The trouble that I have with League of Legends and World of Warcraft is that whenever I stumble into a thread of players discussing that game, I immediately think that they're just laughing at each other and pretending to be shocked. Edit: The joke is lol and wow. Edit edit: And Call of Duty players are avid fishermen, apparently.
+lel Well I play both. And Vanilla is just more difficult. hands down. Try vanilla naxx. Youll know what i mean. But the new version has its good sides too! Its just a different game to play, thats it. some like vanilla others like wod/legion
It also might be because people who play now are just better compared to players back then. Might be because of the resources available now compared to those old days and back then no one really had a comparable infrastructure to what exist today when for raiding. This doesn't even include the number of addons available today and blizzard being better at fine tuning gear/raids/classes.
the problem with most games which have a "legendary" difficulty is that it doesn't take into account pre-existing game mechanics e.g. cod on veteran just makes more nades get thrown plus you take more damage and the enemies take less, this doesn't work well when you're in scenarios where you have to defend a set position or are un-able to move from a position.
Played that Rayman level (Rayman Legends, there are even more difficult levels to play after this one) and i think i had to retry around 30 times before finishing it but this level was really well made,it's a musical level where your character moves at the same rythm than that of the music, so instead of being frustrated by the difficulty,even if you die you still enjoy the music playing,whereas playing that level without any music to guide you would end up being raging.
Rayman Legends has a lot of really hard levels, but the checkpoints are so well done that they don't piss you off. They really nailed it with that game.
The worst of them all was the very last level in 8 bit. The moment where the screen is turned around AND splits into 3000 smaller screens took me so much time to actually do well, I haven't played this game recently but I remember very well struggling so much with the final boss that I had my brother come and help me and even then we would keep dying and have to revive each other all the time. It was the only really difficult and actually frustrating part of the game for me but it just felt so satisfying to beat. Another game I found very balanced in difficulty when it first came out was Ori and the Blind Forest, but they've added difficulty levels on the newest extension and while trying the hardest one I found the game a bit frustrating but still interesting for a second playthrough of the game.
I luckily 100% the game over half a month with my cousin and i understand why it angers you cuz i went through the same thing but eventually you get so good at the game that whenever I'm pissed i play that level to relax. So i am either amazing or the entire level layout was burned into my head and it was probably the second one
Sure, you can't die in Kirby's Epic Yarn, but try going for the high score in each level, then come back and tell me how easy it is. Same goes for Yoshi's Story. Yeah, it's easy to collect 30 fruits in each level, but have you tried collecting 30 melons in each level? That's some bullshit. I still haven't done that.
I do agree with the rest of your video though. Difficulty doesn't seem like an easy thing to program. I really do love your serious videos like this one, probably just as much as your comedy videos. You're truly a talented person. :)
Idk, when i play games I don't like collecting things nor do i like getting all trophies (except for dmc3). I would prefer the game to be challenging to complete, but I do like easy games also though since they can be fun. Some donkey kong country levels made me want to pull my hair out :')
I'm kinda the opposite. I like collecting everything, and if I don't thoroughly enjoy a game enough to want complete it, I won't play it. The plus side is that it saves me a lot of money, haha.
+Anthony Felder No...... My first Halo game was 3 I play the campaign on mutliplayer with my brother. Halo 2 on legendary makes it so if one person dies, they both have to back to the last checkpoint.
My favourite thing about Mario 64 is its ridiculously high skill ceiling. Sure the controls are nowhere near as easy to grasp as later games like Sunshine and Galaxy, but when you get it right in 64, the shit you can pull off is insanely satisfying both to watch and to play. Even better is that the levels are designed in a way that almost always gives you the opportunity to mess about with the high level shit you can get away with, despite the game not expecting anywhere near that amount of skill from you.
GamerBlue53 JGTDT Yeah, I think Sunshine actually has the best composition of high level movement *and* polish when it comes to control, but the opportunities to really let loose with that level of movement beyond letting the FLUDD carry you everywhere are much less frequent than in 64. If they can make a 3D Mario game with compact levels like in 64, as well as the more focused platforming you get from Galaxy/3D World, but with the extra polish that Sunshine added with the controls, then I think we'd have the perfect 3D Mario.
***** I've played pretty much all mario games and Galaxy 1 is definitely on my top 3. Maybe not the same level of control, but it's still an awesome game.
Papa Dunkey, how do you feel about the concept where the game adapts to what it observes of the player? For example, when the game notices that you're struggling really hard, it drops more health items randomly in crates or wherever, but if it notices that you're just breezing through, it starts to spawn more enemies, maybe increase the chances of critical hits and all that kinda stuff. I'm sure it's a nightmare to develop a mechanic like that especially when the game is already really complex, but I personally think that this concept might be one of the best if done right!
games like yoshis island where it makes you invincible with the gold wings or whatever, bad idea. games like dark souls 2 where enemies stop spawning after you kill them enough, good idea
Nah, the "kill them enough and they respawn" was a bad idea, nobody who had ever played DkS1 or DS before liked it, and it was more of a "can't go through this? we got you man" while the title of the game was DARK SOULS II. Just no.
I saw it more of "you've killed these guys like 10 times now. You're obviously not having difficulties with their encounter, so lets cut the crap and save some time". I mean, if you've killed them enough so they don't respawn, they're obviously not your problem, whatever is after it is your problem, and you're still going to have to kill that thing that's giving you problems a bunch of times before it stops spawning...I just fail to see how it makes the game any less difficult to stop spawning shit you're tearing through.
Tao Now that you mention it, Earthbound sort of did that too, didn't it? Once you got too powerful for the enemies of any given region, they'd either run away from you instead of trying to charge you, or if you did touch them and it was obvious you would kill them with one hit, the fight didn't even initiate, it just said "YOU WON!" and you received whatever miniscule amount of EXP the fight would have gotten you. I think that's cool. It's efficient and gives the player a good sense of how strong they really are.
I didn't know Dark Souls 2 did that. That's actually brilliant. Resident Evil 4 did a lot of stuff like that, it would despawn enemies or give your more/less ammo and health packs based on how good you were doing. You hardly notice it, but it's really well done.
This is a really good video that gave me some retrospective on difficulties and I think my take away from this is that when you design difficulties ideally what you should go for is something like this, 1 or 2 difficulties, or 3 if you're feeling spicy. I think this works best because besides the intended difficulty being true, this is because that's the difficulty you as the game designer know and understand best, but also if you're making a second difficulty that's an easier one or a harder one? You use that first intended normal difficulty as your base line for what you consider a more casual or hardcore play on your part. This is how I think you can tailor multiple difficulties and how it should be done, because difficulties isn't just a numbers game and let God sort out the rest, you have to put intention in your difficulty to make it meaningful, even if experienced players won't understand the easier difficulties, because those aren't designed for them, those are designed for players who want a more casual play time while still having a good time playing and I think that works as broadly as you can while keeping up the quality of your game. You won't be able to find the most scientifically accurate difficulty to skill level ratio and that's probably a fruitless endeavor to even take on, because games aren't completely balanced and the most fun ones aren't trying to be, they're trying to challenge the players but I think there is a sweet spot and like a good cook? You have to find it on your own and experiment with your own game design, keep experimenting and improving, that's how Nintendo got to where they're at and they've spent literal decades perfecting their formulas, proving to any aspiring developers that there's always room for more improvement and more experimenting within your own style. For a 3rd difficulty that's something that can be more unique either to developers, or something like joke difficulties that could be fun. I'm thinking of something like Streets of Rage Mania and Doom's Nightmare difficulties, the latter is a joke one, while SoR's Mania is not exactly a joke but very close, rather it's something of an insane mode, something that's not expected to be beaten by most players and designed to be borderline unfair.
I think its very important to allow one to choose the difficoulty just because everybody's skill level is very different. I am more of a strategy gamer and for example racing games kick my ass, on the other hand i can handle probably a bit more in some other games where another person would be frustrated. Moreover there is the question of various levels of phisical abilities like reflex or coordination, there are elderly ppl, disabled and so on and so forth who also deserve to enjoy games and play them even if they arent very good at them.
_League of Legends, the most toxic difficult unbalanced game I've ever played with the sea of salt surrounding the community. What a masterpiece._ And I like Gardevoir.
"Oh, you HAVE to play _a b and c champion_ to get better." "You have to purchase _t item_ to survive." "This is _survival, not only meta_." As if it weren't the creative and diverse part of the community.
Actually It does, but it's only for the controllers. Halo Online has that mechanic, but I will never understand why people use controllers for FPS however.
When I was playing Kirby's epic yarn I was way too busy smiling and going "Awww!" every 2 seconds to have an existential meltdown. That game does everything in it's power to give you diabetes with how sweet it is. Like, Jesus Christ, that game is the ultimate feel-good game. Of course, if you're to much of a manly macho dude to enjoy cute things.... then why the hell did you buy the game in the first place?
Kribby the Trap Its like the difference between Yoshis Island and Yoshis Story. Yoshis Island was cyute. Had a baby on your back and world made of crayon, but it had a twist to it that let the childish nature just speak for itself, while Yoshis Story tried way way way too hard to do the same thing. Kirby lately is sweet in a way that feels forced sometimes, and I prefer his adorable but in his own way personality from games like Star Allies and Superstar than Epic Yarn. That's straight up Yoshis Story toddlerfication.
