God Hand: Difficulty and Fairness - Design Documentary 

I'm so glad to know that God Hand reached out and touched people more than just myself, because IMO it is one of the best games for the PS2, and it would have really been more appreciated if it didn't have such a lousy launch. Same with Okami. I couldn't find anything but it seemed like Capcom really wanted these games to not succeed. But I'll gladly do Capcom's job for them and I told everybody I knew about God Hand as well.

also one of my fav ps2 games

Same I never heard of it man. But I got it recently and it didn't disappoint. I enjoyed this game

Thank you! I'm really glad you enjoyed it!

+Avalanche Reviews I only hope the video is also as satisfying as God Hand as well.

@@SoberDwarf hi I've got question to ask you do you think Godzilla save the earth on ps2 and original xbox has dynamic difficulty cause I was fighting against king ghidorah kicking his ass and all of sudden started dodging all my attacks and and became untouchable and defeated me it was like king ghidorah was a real player

My best guess now would be to possibly Tweet at them. I'm not sure if they ever gave specific contact details for God Hand but I'm keeping the hope alive. The game itself goes on flash sale a lot on PSN for the PS3, so that's if that's an option, definitely keep an eye out for it. And thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks. I think passion is really what drove this video, because honestly, God Hand is one of my favorite video games of all time, to the point where originally (it being my first video I've worked on) I knew I wasn't going to do it justice until I figured out how to edit.

Thanks. Honestly this was the most fun I had in making a video, so most of the polish here was because I was so passionate about it.

Thank you!

Awesome! I hope you enjoy it if you do!

Thank you!

Thank you! I really appreciate hearing that. Let me know how it goes!

SoberDwarf I've beaten Elvis for the second time so far and it's been really fun. I hope it gets even better

Nice! Best of luck with the MM5, that's usually where I got stuck!

Thank you!

Not quite! But I at the very least hope everyone who watched it enjoyed it, because this was a fun video to make!

I'm glad that I can now consider my show to be categorized under "Education". SoberDwarf is here to teach.

Wouldn't that be a twist if your show somehow ended up known for education of a topic not even related to game design?

I mean I also taught a factoid about the Japanese culture and language. It's not entirely impossible.

Ah, right. I forgot about that.

Your comment is impregnable!

Yeah, honestly I think that beat'em ups could do a lot more with character customization, I'm not entirely sure why we don't see more of that. Beyond just stat customization that is.

(I purposely left out "psychological difficulty", because that's a lot more - ironically - difficult to discuss. That one includes factors such as stress or repetitive patterns to reduce the concentration and rational abilities of people. It is applied in marketing and other environments, but certainly also video game design, e.g. if you fought a pink rabbit in "Dark Souls" instead of a horrific undead monstrosity, your psychological abilities were less restricted and thus you'd have no psychological disadvantage. It is something that I don't know just how much game designers are even aware of, but it seems intuitive to design challenges with that, so we find it in many if not most games.)

A last addition, then I shut up: You may think about chess again and say that there's a difference depending on who your opponent is. Whileas there is a definite mathematical solution to win (depending on which colour you have), the reasoning of the opponent is a decisive factor in many games where things happen simultaneously. There, it is about how likely you are to crack the code of someone's mind, so that you can predict their reasoning and foresee their next move. But, this again, has to do with empirical data and either you observe your own psychology to retrieve human behaviour or you've seen it in others. In any case, as that one is possibly the most variable and the algorithms actually _change_ over the course of our lives (i.e. we grow and develop our reasoning), trying to decipher other humans is, arguably, the most challenging type of game - cracking intelligence itself.

Hey, don't shut up. The whole reason I make these videos is because I want to inspire conversation. I think Trial-and-error gameplay is important, you have to let your player make mistakes so he can "learn", and I think the important part of that is making sure that the punishment for learning isn't really a punishment. I think Dark Souls does a good job because you often slowly make progress from a bonfire and never really "lose" too much. You usually have a few estus flasks you can make mistakes, or in the worst case scenario, you can always go back and get your souls. Super Meat Boy is a good example as well. It allows you to really figure out things on your own terms, and there is almost no punishment. Once you start to give the player that knowledge, then you you can start easing repercussions, like having more stakes for failure. You still don't want to punish players to hard for a mistake, especially after giving them something new, but I think you can start testing them on things that they should know and having a punishment for failing that test. Like, your Super Mario Bros. example. Many of people died to that goomba, but you just started the game, so even the loss of that life in a game with game overs isn't terrible. And so in world 7 where there are three of them following a winged, jumping koopa, you already know how to take best advantage of that situation, and you most likely wouldn't be making that mistake. If you did, that life is more important now than it was in world 1. (But that also points out the fact that it's not super punishing with the warp zones.) And that fact that you brought this into human psychology is really apt as well, because you could consider that the difficulty of fighting games (a topic I really want to talk about sometime but I need to do a *lot( more research to do it justice) because that's exactly that with mind games, especially in a situation where you need to react and have the skill to use that reaction, and you're talking about tenths of a second to get all that information, AND the gambling needed to weight percentages and options of things you don't know. I could probably do 50 more videos on the different kinds of difficulty itself, and that's just one aspect of game design. Looks like I'll be making videos for awhile!

And I think that went successful for you! Glad you like discussion. Actually, I just realised something that I want to see more implemented in games: "Passive Learning". That is, when you don't make the experiences on your own self but observe someone else making it. Imagine being able to see an NPC performing an action that will have the same effects on them as it will have on you, e.g. they hit a wooden crate (for whatever reason) and the crate explodes, teaching you that this crate is explosive. _(In the indie title "Salt and Sanctuary", I have actually learnt of some traps through that, because an enemy walked into them before I could, teaching me where to pay attention.)_ One could implement this in all kinds of ways: Similar to "Skyrim", where certain creatures attack each other, or making it possible to influence the interest of creatures to f.e. attack each other, or creating a shadow image of oneself to send out like some Necromancer builds in some fantasy games can. It would reduce speed in favour of observation. _("Prince of Persia: SoT" had the "rewind time" system, which is not the same.)_ Also, I think a big part about difficulty is how intuitive something is, and that depends largely on prior experiences of players. For those complaining about "Dark Souls" having illusionary walls, they obviously haven't played the "Castlevania" games and not associated these games together. Given, the game comes a decade later and shows us this feature, which may have been more intuitive in the 90s. I often try to ask myself: "If I had to program AI to beat my game, how complicated would the code have to be?" And if the AI only needs to learn that "touching object X" is bad, then that's a lot more straightforward than "touching object X from angle Y". _(Because the Goombas are already quite perplexing: If you engage from left, right or bottom, they're bad, but from above they're good. So, the statistical experience of 75% failure when touching a Goomba will make the stomping on them very unlikely to put faith in.)_ Another thought I throw out there while the inspiration strikes (maybe you can do something with it - certainly more than my notebooks can, unless they start to develop self-awareness and motor skills): Why do we "level up" in most games upon being successful rather than failing? The entire "level up" system facilitates the game, yet we've just proven that we are good at it even with current settings. Think about it from a very primitive point of view: If you attack an enemy and he defeats you, you will respawn with the knowledge that "enemy has this attack pattern" and your real-life knowledge increases, making you (as a player) grow and thus be able to get around the enemy next time more easily. The respawn system allows for you to collect real-life knowledge through failure. You don't need to alter the game for the game to get easier from thereon. _(Increasing the character's knowledge could be to highlight the vulnerable spots of the enemy or give you his movelist or whatever.)_ But when you are simply too slow to dodge attacks, either you "git gud" as a real-life person or the game has to adjust to facilitate your experience, e.g. slowing down the game a bit. _(If you happen to play a game on a PC, you can just artificially throttle it by making the game lag, but I don't recommend that.)_ Typically, you see that by giving the player more HP, DEF or SPD, so that you can allow more mistakes to be made and still beat the enemy. That is, you "level up". Thus, shouldn't the game give you XP when you fail? And shouldn't it be specific to the challenge you've encountered? You don't really gain experience about archery combat when you've fought a fire-breathing dragon, so it would be silly to suddenly also have an advantage in an archery fight. I think you can see where I'm coming from. Furthermore, the way we typically experience an XP-based game is that we fight easy enemies, win, gain XP, then get to a difficult enemy, lose, grind the easy enemies to gain XP, then beat the difficult enemy. Why should you have to do the things you already succeeded in again (in the first place), only to get better at something you've failed? One may argue that defeating multiple slow archers makes you step up to the speed of a fast archer, but I still find it dissatisfying for the most part. What I mean to illustrate is twofold: Firstly, new ideas about how to efficiently help the player, and secondly, demonstrating that the "level-up" system is really more of a clap on your shoulder and a replacement for the "Hi-Score" system of the arcades than anything "useful". You can boast with it, feel good about yourself _(if others see it; because I've been sitting on pretty sweet successes sometimes without anyone having been there to witness my skills - sad face)_ and it can serve as a benchmark to test out the game's balance. But I am very much against this notion of "you succeed, you get more of the game" _(which is an exploration thing)_ if it interferes with the game's balance (e.g. you almost cannot defeat an enemy at a lower character-level) or simply locks you in at some points (e.g. you simply cannot digest a certain attack pattern but rule at the other 99% of the game). If at all, beating the more difficult enemy with less equipment should be satisfying, like I did with bosses when not wielding any weapon; fist only. _(Not in "Dark Souls", though. I wish...)_ The final reason for the "level-up" system is customisation. You spend those currencies strategically on certain gains to be able to play more the way you want or think is effective. But, again, I question the necessity of this being procedural, i.e. happening over the course of the game (e.g. "Skyrim") instead of prior to starting the game (e.g. building your own deck in MtG). _(And for people who think that "XP = RPG", I need to write a long book one day, breaking down how "Super Mario Bros." is about as much of an RPG as a game with a "level-up" system in it. But that's an entirely different story.)_ (This could've been a 5-minute video of my own. Writing is faster, though.)

To properly reply to your comment: You said something very important: _"the punishment for learning isn't really a punishment"_ I've been thinking about that myself - how can you design a game in a way that even failure gives you something aside from knowledge? I've watched that one lecture of a guy on RU-vid the other day where he brought the example of "Portal", where you have a room in which you try to jump across a gap, but it will be too far, so you'll fall; yet the fall will show you where the real solution lies - in that pit. It makes me think how to convert f.e. dying into something "fun". Maybe not too fun, as it still has to feel like you want to avoid it and you've missed your main objective. But the main idea is there. _"you can always go back and get your souls"_ - I've been thinking ever since "Bloodborne": What if enemies leveled up when they steal your souls? It'd be hilarious. Personally, I'd add that to my game. Maybe as a "hard mode" or so. Actually, something very important is the proper length of a challenge. The bonfires in "Dark Souls" aren't too far apart, and they remind a bit of the checkpoints in "Super Mario Bros.". But then comes the question: Why not just make each of those segments their own complete level? (More in SMB than DS, of course. "Super Meat Boy" does it, for example.) And I think one reason is that the difficulty curve of the second half is still ascending, so it'd have a weird start of a level if it were its own thing. But the more important part being that you want to give *some* relief and encourage the player, but not really make them stop. The bonfires work differently, as you can pretty much turn off the game and do something else. So, if comparing it to the segment length of a SMB level is fair, I think we are back to "Nintendo Hard", there. Indeed, as you said, maybe after achieving a new stage, you throw in a bunch of the old challenges, but on steroids, to see if the player really learnt from the progress so far. I think that's the lesson of a boss fight, but personally speaking, I think many games don't do a good job at that. The "Zelda" games do, as each boss represents the mechanics learnt in that particular dungeon. But then there are many others that I simply don't feel test you a lot in something new but just more of the old stuff. Another mistake in my eyes is when a game feels like it has to have this one giant boss monstrosity to count as a "boss fight" - I actually consider the Mario games to do a poor job at that, because they keep adding boss fights to the stages which I simply don't feel belong there. It's never been an arena fighting game, but a parcouring game. It's like playing two different games. A very recent indie title, "Butcher", did a great job _(I'm not all the way through yet, so I don't know about later stages.)_, namely in adding stress test rooms that spawn waves of enemies as a sort of "climax" where you'd normally expect a boss. The game wouldn't be suited for having a big boss, and even a sort of "multiplayer boss" (i.e. an AI that is simply very clever but has the same equipment as you) would not make sense, which is why I applaud them for having made that decision, which more games should try out. _"I could probably do 50 more videos on the different kinds of difficulty itself"_ Go on, I'm waiting, haha. But yes, I think it would be really helpful to have a solid elaboration of the "Types of Challenges" and really connect game design with psychology and mathematics and whatever else needed. Reflexes, observation, creativity and memory being some of them. And then coming all the kinds of psychological motivations, emotions, resistances against stress, the way illusions and tricks play against us, and what types of patterns challenge us in what ways. It certainly is something else to try to outsmart AI (or actual intelligence) than to simply solve a puzzle, train your reflexes or make good guesses. It's why in the absence of AI, it is the level designer who has to give the player a challenge that works with "stupid intelligence" as well and makes them appear intimidating.

I'm just glad I had the opportunity to share the love!

I love God Hand so much. Once you know what you are doing its such satisfying game (even though it never gets any easier).

Yeah, God Hand is one of those games that's difficult to convey just by showing, it's really something you have to be holding the controller to experience. But the fact I got people interested is exactly what I wanted to accomplish with this video! I hope you enjoy it!

I think part of the difficulty people have with God Hand is how it really doesn't tell you anything. I sort of know in my heart that isn't really "good" game design. It's still very similar to how arcade cabinets treated you, and that was probably Shinji doing that intentionally (to invoke that feeling) and I always get torn if I would want that improved on so more people would get the same experience I have, or if that is integral to the game's charm because as frustrating as I remember it being when I first played it, the fact that I beat it without the game helping me gives me a lot of respect for it as an experience. It's the same with Dark Souls as well. I'm just glad I got the opportunity to tell people about this game. The fact I got a few people to give it a chance is probably the most rewarding experience.

And I think that's also something I miss in games. I kept complaining about unskippable cutscenes and tutorials and tooltips, HUD etc. that can't be turned off for ages, and we finally have more people appreciating this mentality and delivering with very "gamer's games". It just feels great to boot up a game, press "Start" and immediately get into the action, then trying to figure out WTF you're actually doing and discuss with others. - And I think that's also why "Dark Souls" is so great, because you get encouraged to do that. Imagine if every fact were known about Vlad Tepes; we'd not have had Bram Stoker write a mythologisised novel about him in a fiction that spawned the cult of vampires and Dracula media. Mysteries motivate us. We almost know the "answers to the universe" (or at least some scientist would like to think so), so we can do with more mysteries at least in games and fiction. _(Furthermore I find it an important effect on society, since we are used to just get taught and obey, so why should games just enforce this behaviour and not teach us more about our own skills and talents?)_

I played that game, though it's been a long time so I probably would need to revisit it. I remember the stealth sections of the game being pretty painful to go through but I liked the combat sections! You also just reminded me of Onimusha too, I need to check that out again sometime.

+TTIOttio That very episode vetted a lot of my research for this video, and managed to do it with a lot less sexual overtones, so I highly agree to check it out!

I actually had to do some research myself to answer this, because I never actually knew the song name myself. Turns out, it's actually a sped up version of "Populous - Bon Bon Pour Les Rappers" (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-kRNky9clbrc.html). Also, I really do like the music but I think for the most part it speaks for itself. That's the thing about analysis, it's always hard to know what to talk about and what not to bring up because it isn't a 'review' per se. A lot of stuff gets left on the cutting room floor when writing these scripts.

+Eternity's Scribe I have played Hagane, and that game is really hard! Honestly, if I didn't have 30 games other games to cover, I would love to look at more games like that.

Me too, it's definitely one of my favorite PS2 games.

I understand the criticism against the longer length, and I'm glad you enjoy them despite it! The issue I face is that if I were to try to cut it down to length, then I would lose a lot that makes the channel for enjoyable for a lot of people. Most people who watch and subscribe have brought up that they enjoy the depth and the length of my videos and when I did a survey for the channel, the majority of people stated that they rather see longer videos. There are plenty of youtubers who work better with a shorter format and that's a space I can't compete in. I have been working better to pace it a bit better with future videos so despite them being upwards of 40 minutes long, they are hopefully engaging the entire time!

No luck. Dang.