Select Difficulty – Challenging but Doable

Difficulty. It changes dramatically from game to game, and what we want changes just as much from gamer to gamer. Me? I like a challenge. I’ve mellowed a bit in recent years and no longer feel the need to play things so insanely difficult that you’re lucky to finish with your hands bloody and raw, but I still like a challenge. There’s something super-satisfying about slogging through something difficult. Putting in so much effort and exercising your tactical mind can really lead to bigger rewards.

Of course, games these days are far easier than they were 25 years ago, and console games tend to be easier than PC games by another couple of degrees, but game developers can still give us a challenge. Sure, they sometimes go a little too far (Super Meat Boy and Demon’s Souls spring to mind) but there’s always the option of a challenge for those of us who want it.

As mentioned in my previous blog, I was uber excited by Final Fantasy XIII-2. As both a JRPG nut and a completionist, FFXIII-2 should have been the latest game to tick all my boxes and push my abilities as a gamer. “Should” be the operative word. I love the game. To pieces. The storyline is original and immersive, the battle system is improved and super tactical, and there’s more of a free roam element than in FFXIII. However, it’s just too easy. I can understand that in order to gain a wider audience games may be need to be a tad easier but I can’t help but feel it’s FFXIII-2’s most major failing. It just removes any epic feelings when you come across a gigantic armored monster that should be able to stomp you into itty bitty pieces and then you sail through the fight. Don’t get me wrong, there are some challenging fights, but as a whole, even the post-game sidequests don’t present that much of an obstacle to overcome. The icing on the cake has to be the difficulty settings. For the first time, there actually is a difficulty option. Should you be new to RPGs or simply want a cakewalk then you can lower the difficulty to “easy”. Bizarrely, that’s the only option. Whilst you can make the game easier, there’s no option to crank it up a notch. Where’s the “hard” setting? I hope this isn’t the start of some sort of trend. Whilst I may not want to be playing everything on “Insanity” or “Nightmare” these days, I enjoy playing on “hard”. I like the extra satisfaction I get from pushing myself that little bit more and I need the opportunity to do it. I guess I just hadn’t realised how important the challenge aspect is to me. I’m looking forward to getting back to something a bit more taxing.