Gaming Lounge

[Kriven]

"Hard is good" is the same logical fallacy high school English teachers have been trying to beat into students' brains since the dawn of time.

Sometimes they're right, sometimes not. Often times I find that what people praise about the "hard" games are the very aspects I find to be total shut-off bullshit. With a lot of these games (such as the early Legend of Zelda titles), I very rarely feel as if the death had anything to do with a fault in my own abilities or planning. There's almost nothing more infuriating than struggling tooth and nail only to inevitably perish, time after time, until you finally manage to luck out because the AI fucked up or the enemies spawned in just the right spot. This kind of challenge simply is not fun for me, and it's a flaw that I see in a lot of old school games.

But, well, whether something is good or bad isn't something I can decide for anybody else, and it isn't something anybody else can decide for me. And it isn't really right that others respond in such abrasive tones and matter-of-fact lines of thought. Why do so many discussions fall away from "I think X and Y about this game" and become "I think X and Y about this game, and I have an A and B comment about you"?

and frankly nobody WILL change it for you.

How is this (and Tom, I'm not trying to pick on you in particular. You were just the nearest post) at all relevant or constructive? These kinds of comments simply come off as bullying most of the time. I'm sure there's more than a few hints and nudges about maybe people (Koh, in this case) needing to think beyond their interests or maybe that their tone or remarks are a little pushy. And it's true, some of (Koh)'s remarks (though honestly, nothing in this thread in particular) can be a little high-and-mighty or specifically tailored, but when you're discussing unique interests and how you reacted to a certain piece of media, you really are just going with your gut and what you thought about this aspect and that aspect based entirely on a concept which is specifically tailored for you.

Really, the bullying gets very old. Many responses (on both sides, but particularly on the side of the majority opinion) aren't phrased tactfully enough to not come off as anything but rude and demeaning. When what is being said boils down to: "I like this and you're wrong, so nut up and shut up, cupcake", at least in tone, it's not going to create any conversation. None. That generates as much conversation as "I like this because it's cool and you can't change my mind", but a whole lot more negative sway.

Generally what I'm trying to say is not to stop discussing the merits of restricted physics or the particular direction a game is headed in design or aesthetic or play, but to seriously cut back on the level of personal snark being thrown about. It would be nice (and I know this whole post is hypocritical) if we could keep the discussions on the games, naturally our opinions, and not on the conversationalists. I'd just like to see and participate in a discussion about the games and the opinions of the games and not the opinions of the opinions or the opinions of the opinionaters. Just my two cents.

(Oh, and I've never played Castlevania beyond some XBLA thing. I think it was a version of Symphony of the Night? It was really zoomed out and not very fun, but I only gave it a few minutes to leave an impression. I just have a little bit of fatigue on all this "Nintendohard" bidness, and I honestly believe "Nintendohard" titles are rarely hard by design [but am totally aware that a number of vintage titles were intentionally made difficult, to keep the quarters poppin']. I just don't think find them [often] to be rewarding enough to invest the time in, and the division of the gaming community often created by the concept of "Nintendohard" is really fucking terrifying for me. It's not fun to be looked down on for not enjoying difficult things, particularly when gaming is the recreation used to escape the already difficult reality [which wasn't happening too much here {but definitely was a little bit} and is mainly spill from other experiences].)