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How Hard is Too Hard? | Windbreaker Podcast
7.4k Plays4 months ago
On this week’s episode of Windbreaker, Yahtzee, Frost, and Marty chat that old chestnut of difficulty in games, springboarding off the release of Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Welcome
00:00:00
Speaker
This video is brought to you by the high-speed world of Phantom Spark, a precision time trial racing game coming soon to steam Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox.
00:00:12
Speaker
Hello you everyone, welcome to the Windbreaker Podcast. I'm Yahtzee Crenshaw, and I'm joined by Frost. Hello. And Marty. Happy summer solstice.
Elden Ring DLC Discussion
00:00:23
Speaker
And oh my goodness, the chat's already popping off on this one, isn't it? Because we thought with the aftermath of the release of the Shadow of the Earthry DLC for Elden Ring, and it's suddenly mysteriously acquiring a mixed response on Steam, and we thought it might be time to talk about how hard is too hard. Because while some people are complaining about
00:00:44
Speaker
ah the DLC just because of From Software's usual issues with PC ports. There are a fair number of them are also complaining that it's just too hard. A lot of reviewers as well. I should freely admit up front I haven't played it and don't intend to because i I value my face and don't want it to get smashed into a wall too much. Where are you two on it? i've I've put about 15 hours into it and i'm I'm really enjoying it. And this is going to be the weirdest thing because I literally just said on it ah right before we went live that I'm bad at games. I don't think it's too hard.
00:01:19
Speaker
Hey, I think the difficulty is fine. Yeah, let's see here. I am, shoot, I think I've got like five hours into it, but I'm also with Marty. I'm kind of coasting, but we'll, we'll see. We'll see what this means depending on play style. Cause everyone's playing this game differently. Number one, I think that's the main issue.
Gameplay Mechanics and Challenges
00:01:37
Speaker
yeah a lot of A lot of the negative reviews are like, um, it's too hard for how I want to play. i Okay. All right. If you want to play like a coward like this guy and summon as many jolly cooperators as possible. and i I mean, I assume that's, that's the intended thing you're supposed to do.
00:01:56
Speaker
Yeah, well, and also right off the bat, there was this initial, um you know, this is going to be a, we're going to start off with Shadow of the Air Tree, but obviously this is going to be a larger discussion on sort of the the philosophical nature of difficulty in games and everything. But um right off the bat, like there is a new mechanic in this game, the the Skadoo Tree Fragments. that if you don't engage with you are going to get your ass kicked by everything in this DLC. These are ostensibly ah collectibles you find throughout the environment and ah you level them up at sites of grace and ah you you pump them into your stats and they raise your stats
00:02:31
Speaker
ah in the DLC and DLC alone. So they don't impact you back in the real world of Elden Ring, but they will raise your damage percentage and lower the amount of damage you take as you find more. So in that way, if you do not engage with it, the first boss you come across are going to is probably gonna wreck you. Presumably that's a measure ah to ah compensate for everyone, presumably going into the DLC with different levels and builds. mean Frost has literally doubled my level when he entered, right?
Balancing Difficulty and Player Enjoyment
00:03:04
Speaker
you have Did you enter at like 260 and I entered at 130?
00:03:08
Speaker
Jesus, yeah, 259 base. I'm not NG plus. I do hear that there is scaling for for a new game and new game plus beyond that. But um mathematically speaking, the strongest you're ever going to be is max level on the base difficulty. So I just went in at 259 at base. Are you at base? Yeah. Okay, so but maybe that's maybe that's an hour thing? Because neither of us are having issues, but we're also willing to engage with the with the game in our own cowardly ways. Yeah. Well, I suspect I would have issues because, as I've said before, I still haven't finished the base game. I stopped at the Fatty and Skinny boss fight, and I haven't really felt much motivation to to finish off the last few.
00:03:55
Speaker
And ah part of that is the ongoing struggle with souls-like fatigue that I've talked about. And I want to like get my credentials in order here. I love Dark Souls 1. I'm huge on Dark Souls 1. I played it a million times. I love Bloodborne. I played Dark Souls 2 a million times. But I feel like it's somewhere along the line. I kind of got left behind. I feel like the Souls-like genre has been
Critique of Game Design and Boss Fights
00:04:19
Speaker
sort of buying into its own hype a little bit with this notion that it has to be super hard. And all it can really do with each ah new like innovation is to up that difficulty. Each game, new challenges, new ways to counter standard like player strategies, and it's just gotten harder and harder, and it's just not really that fun for me anymore.
00:04:40
Speaker
and i realize I'm going to get a little bit roasted here as much as Eurogamer was for dropping their score for the DLC for being like admittedly too hard but there's got to be a point if you just keep trying to beat your previous difficulty record that you're gonna start leaving players behind. Is that would that be fair to say? I think so, considering him like for this metaphor, I love spicy food. Around 2013, the spice head movement was kicking in, everything was getting spicy, but people lost the plot. A lot of products started getting just like spice extract. The flavor was gone. It was just pure heat, pure pain for no reason. It was like, why am I putting myself through this? And I'm with you, except I think I dropped off a lot sooner, way, way sooner, where I was like,
00:05:29
Speaker
Dark Souls 1 to me, as much as it is the difficulty, it's the world design, it's the maps, it's it's the story, it's the world building, it's all of that. And I go, ever since then, we've not matched that. The bosses have gotten cooler, the combat has gotten nice, but ah do I want to suffer a bland world as much as an assbeating, you know? Like, it's just so it's not worth it for me. like these was like there was There was texture to a lot of the boss fights in Dark Souls 1. I mean, that there was there were boss fights where it was just like, a dude in armor or two dudes in armor and the boss fights against big monsters and every now and again there'd be something weird like the moonlight butterfly where ah it does nothing but magic damage and if you haven't got a ranged weapon you're kind of fucked. It played things off a bit and it feels like in Elden Ring
00:06:18
Speaker
It feels like everything's Manos' father of the Abyss
Audience Segmentation and Gamers' Expectations
00:06:23
Speaker
now. Because Manos' father of the Abyss was the boss fight where it felt like they were really starting to counter my preferred strategy of ah bait their attack, roll behind them, and stab them in the bum. And it feels like everything now has to sort of counter that specific strategy by flailing around with every attack, like insta-snapping onto you if you don't dodge it precisely the right frame. And every, I feel like half the bosses in Elden Ring are flailers. Flaily, flaily, flaily, flaily. I mean, Fromsoft does like a drippy dude, a drippy dude with weird limbs who's kind of like moving unnaturally. um I mean, one thing since Dark Souls 1 is that their DLCs tend to be kind of like
00:07:08
Speaker
You know how like I think some Dave and Busters at like 10pm become adults only, like 21 and over? sure like That's what the DLC to me feels like like. The DLC feels like, okay, so if these Soulsborne games are only for a certain audience, then the DLC even segments that audience a little bit. and That's even going into that when you saw the stats last week of only whatever a quarter of the people ah beat Moog, which is what is needed to enter the DLC. And it's a completely optional area that I missed on my first playthrough of the game. Well, it was pretty hard to find the DLC in original Dark Souls, although yeah i I played that game sort of after the fact. i I got into that game sort of after the fact, so it was already well documented by then. Yeah, yeah.
00:07:53
Speaker
but you got yeah got to What are you going to do? You've got to go to the lake, you've got to defeat the Hydra, you've got to get to the ah Duke's Archives, which is past, ah you know, the getting the Lordvessel, kill one specific enemy to get one weird, unspecific item, and then go but and then no to go back to the lake and look for the weird portal. Then a big old hand grabs you. Yeah. So you've been doing a long time. Do you, has there ever been like another game or series where the conversation around it has been 90% its difficulty? Well, uh, even caliber, I guess more in retro times, I guess that was always the conversation around, uh, games like battle toads and, uh, some of the Ninja guidance.
00:08:42
Speaker
A lot of NES games, honestly, were just, I mean, those arcade games are kind of built, we've talked about that built around your failure and then paying money to keep going. I mean, part of why everyone appreciated
Quality of Life and Navigation
00:08:52
Speaker
the Souls-like genre is that there was a feeling that difficulty had dropped off in recent games, that it was all, they were all turning into ghost train rides and uncharteds and half-lives where you just walk down a corridor getting hit by like one challenge in a nice orderly queue. So it was inovative it was innovative when Demon's Souls ah came out and was actually ah difficult again. It felt like difficult in a appreciably retro way.
00:09:22
Speaker
Yeah. And it didn't have, you know, some of those games, like a game like The Last of Us, you can make as easy or as difficult as you want. You know, you could play it on the story mode, which I did, and I only died three times on the story mode. and Let me tell you, three humbling deaths. um Or you could have like the crazy grounded permadeath mode if you really want to be sadistic and possibly lose 12 hours of progress. um Whereas I guess this is... i I was amongst those who appreciated, because you know how down I am on ghost train rides. I appreciated the some challenge getting back into things. I appreciated the process of fighting a boss a few times, recognizing their patterns, learning the correct response to each pattern, and andt etc.
00:10:05
Speaker
But now it's gotten a little bit silly. Interesting, because it's as much cultural and social as anything else. Because it's ah ah playing Dark Souls 1 again and a little bit of 3 to get back into the mood for Elden Ring. I went, holy cow, the quality of life between Dark Souls 1 and 3 is just nothing compared to Elden Ring. It's like, oh, the bonfire is right in front of the bloody door, or there's a stake of America, you know? So I can respawn here, whereas the other one um i nearly tapped out at the Capra Demon again, because I was like, I don't want to run back.
00:10:37
Speaker
I don't want to do these these runbacks, you know? I almost wonder, um as much as I still love Dark Souls 1 now, have has our perception changed to the point where if Dark Souls 1 released now and not under um Fromsoft's name, would people love it as much? Me, I think I'd still love the map. The map is great and everything. And I go, God, some of these bosses are stupid the way that is designed in that sense. So as much as I loved it for it being so different from the Ghost Train rides, are we just kind of getting tired? I would go, I would think that even all that aside, the boss fights in Dark Souls aren't as hard as they were. If you were playing Dark Souls in New and never played it before now, the boss fights wouldn't be as hard as the boss as you'd find the boss fights in Elden Ring playing in New.
00:11:22
Speaker
And the reason why I say that is because, obviously, I've considered that. Obviously, I'm a big Dark Souls fan. I've played it a million times, and the Dark Souls feels pretty easy to me now. I know all the bosses' patterns. I know all the the secret techniques. But then, the Demon's Souls remake came out on PS5, which I hadn't played through before.
Interactive Narrative in Souls-like Games
00:11:42
Speaker
But having the experience of Dark Souls, Dark Souls 2, Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne, Sekiro, I found Demon's Souls astonishingly easy. I even like ah the the big tenpole boss fight against the king the fake king in like the first area. I just like sailed through that, largely by baiting his attack, rolling behind him, and stabbing him in the bum. Classic bum steps. So it does feel like there has been an objective ah increase in difficulty.
00:12:11
Speaker
I mean, you say the objective part, but then every time I feel like two people talk about their Elden Ring experience, they have, and I guess Souls games in general, people have different walls. Like there are a few shared walls. I feel like Ornstein and Smough were like shared walls in the original game, but ah way we were just talking about that. We were just talking about the godskin duo and Yahtzee, you said you tapped out there. That is far and away the boss I spent the most time at in the game. Like it is both times I played it. I'm like, these guys are so fucking hard. And Frost was like, it was easy. When I played with Jack, he first timed it. Like it's, it's, it's a case by case basis.
00:12:46
Speaker
You know what killed me the most in Elden Ring? The fucking tree. Getting down to Milania, whatever her name was, killed me more than actually fighting her in this one as well, because it takes almost half a million souls to actually level me up. I have lost near three million souls because I fall off of things more so than anything I'm actually fighting. So like that, that's where my difficulty is. And the moments where I go, I kind of don't want to keep going. I think we need to start, we need to start taxing the rich tax the two so level, the level two sixties. I'm glad you brought up on students far because I feel like ah that's a significant there's a significant reason why that's a bit of a difficulty ball for a lot of players but for the simple reason that it's two guys and Yeah, and Dark Souls combat is basically designed for one-on-one dueling And if you ever find more than one dude at a time if people are blindsiding it coming off when you're back then you're kind of fucked That's always like how it's been
00:13:41
Speaker
Yeah, and even stuff like the Bell Gargoyles is based around, oh, try to kill this one as quickly as possible before the second one comes into the ring. With every boss fight, ah the strategy of learning their patterns and learning the correct response to each pattern is completely thrown in its head when there's another dude there who you have to simultaneously watch out for, because you might have the opportunity to fight one guy, but then there's this other guy coming up on you, and all your all all your strategies are kind of in the bin. I also want to say that One Scene and Smough is the only boss fight in Dark Souls 1. Feel free to correct me on this. I'm cracking my brains because I feel like I must be wrong here. But it's the only boss fight in Dark Souls 1 where after you whittle the health bar down, ah they come back with another full health bar. um Oh, like the only kind of phase two? Yeah.
00:14:39
Speaker
ah um Yeah, my memory. I think that might be your true at least in the first game that became, I think that became a pretty standard thing going forward. it's like And it's one of them and Sekiro, you got his head off and he's like, I'm, I'm still good. It's, it's become, it's become one of my pet hates as I struggle with souls like fatigue. Uh, cause I've been playing nine souls recently and I've been enjoying that much as I enjoyed another crab's treasure because it feel like it felt like it wasn't just trying to one up the entire genre with new, more challenging fights. Uh, and I was getting through it quite happily, but then I've run into this one boss fight. That's been kind of a wall for me. Uh, it's, uh, the, the lady in the dream world. I don't know if anyone's played nine souls.
00:15:25
Speaker
you go into this sort of virtual dream world where this like the mind of this one lady is hanging out and you and you do you get through her first phase easy peasy but she's ah not that hard if you've like mastered the ah the parry and the hell is man attacks but then you get her health down uh curtain goes down curtain goes up oh she's got another health bar fall to the brim and now there's three of her ah So you got to deal with that. And now like not every time it's the old chestnut where not everything you attack is the real boss and you have to keep hitting them to find out which one's the real boss. but So that was a lot harder. I was doing a lot more damage. ah She was taking a lot more damage. And then I finally got out through and and went, Oh, thank goodness I got through that got through the second phase. And then what do you know, fucking third phase, fucking third phase with this one boss that didn't even feel like a pivotal story boss.
00:16:23
Speaker
ah just pulls out, pulls out a fucking third phase where that now there's fucking six of her and suddenly you're having to like fend off attacks from her copies while she's hitting you with her standard attack. Yes, that's the very one. Thank you, ah Eric. And it's, it's just become a big wall for me because now I have to sort of like grind through the first two stages every time ah just to get to the third phase so I can start to learn ah the responses to her new attacks.
Game Design and Intuitive Challenges
00:16:51
Speaker
And is this, is is this a boss that's just on the main path? This isn't like an optional boss, right? This is just, doing this to el or I don't know if it is like optional. It feels like she's currently the only thing I can do at this point. ah um and I just mentioned that because, um, that's something I've, I've grown like more and more fond of in games are, I think we talked about this when we talked about, uh, animal well, but games that kind of have natural off ramps.
00:17:18
Speaker
of uh in animal wells where it's like oh you can you can after whatever you six hours and you see the credits you can choose to be done or you can keep going and then after you reach another milestone you could choose to be gone or keep going and i feel like hollow knight had a similar thing and hollow knight's first exit i turned off at because i was like oh i think i might be tapped out here and then everything past that the dlc and everything i've uh i've only like experienced by watching other people do it and watching essays and full playthroughs. And I'm like, this looks fucking rad. This is just too much for me at at this point in my life. Like, I think I've just like, as I've gotten older, I just have less time to be like, okay, I'm going to devote my full time to, to getting good at this thing in the same way I could when I was a kid. Well, I just wanted to make it a rule that if you're going to have multiple stages, uh, then you have to warn us upfront.
00:18:10
Speaker
Yeah. Cause what's the, what's the point of a fucking health bar? If getting it all done doesn't mean you're done. That's the whole point. That's that's that's so we know we're done. Yeah. I'm with it, diagetically speaking. if And if you talk to a random NPC and they allude to like ah reincarnation of a of the thing or you know something that through the story, it gives you the answer. That's what I liked about Dark Souls 1. A lot of people say like, oh, you end up cheesing things and whatnot. But there was a lot there was a lot of stuff that if you had the knowledge, you could be you with your brain and could overcome the challenge. like the capra demon absolute bastard you can still stand outside the door and throw fire bombs over and deal with at least the dogs but you could kill him now if from software didn't want you to they could just put a ceiling on that thing right they sort of they they allowed you um the first
00:19:02
Speaker
big bastard that comes down from the church, you can see him as you're opening the door, you can look up and he's right there. Right. So like no crazy surprises. The first ah the first stone that as you're going up the stairs and thiss in the tutorial area, it runs you over. If you just hug that wall, if you just keep walking, it'll miss you. right It's very like, yeah, I did hurt you, but also it's nothing that's gonna brutalize you and you know laugh about it, learn about it. It felt like they were wanting to teach you at the start. Nowadays, I feel like a lot of these Souls games are sort of like, oh you should know by now.
00:19:35
Speaker
You should know what to expect by now, right? I kind of almost miss that, like back and forth that they would have. It would be cool to have an NPC just going, it's like, oh, that's ah it's a rare one, that one, you know, just keeps coming back for some reason. Three times the head was chopped off and now you're like, oh, three phases, eh? You know, some something like that. I want them to be more involved with it. How kind of cool is that there was a system for sort of gathering intelligence on the boss before you've ordered them? I guess that's great. Yeah, like the Assassin's Creed. is So you could like, at least be ah prepared to watch out for certain things you've been warned about like saying if I remember if they start doing such and such a thing, then get ready to do a big role and just as the just as you see their arm twitch.
Story Mode vs. Challenging Gameplay
00:20:20
Speaker
And like phine and technique where you can like do things before and to even like getting the, the most shackle or whatever that you can use against. Um, to was it with the world a room where you can like a poison and stuff like that. Yeah. yeah One of the things I liked about Nine Souls up until the the where I hit the wall where I'm currently at was that there's another boss fight with two stages but just before this. But you can pick up an item that will that ah is like a poison that counteracts genetic engineering or something. And you can if you go back to your home base, you can sell it as like a ah vendor trash item just to get money. But I was suspicious. I was like, hmm.
00:21:02
Speaker
This like seems suspicious that they were it would be described as having these specific properties when I know I'm about to fight a guy who's genetically enhanced. And sure enough, when you get to that boss fight, when you get to the bossphfi there's like a thing just in just after the door ah before you wake him up ah that's like, hey, do you want to stick that thing you found in here? And it like ah like sort of upsets his genetics, so he keeps having to pause the fight and throw up. yeah It's fun. i so I like that. And it makes the fight easier. It's very, you still have to learn it. You still have to learn his patterns. It just means you get a little breather every now and again.
00:21:40
Speaker
like Assassin's Creed, very Batman, very Witcher, isn't it? Like finding all the information, get smart about the fight, and then go in, sort of thing. Now, it can be argued that that's kind of the whole point of the the signs, right? There's like great tits I had or whatever, maybe they're the ones that should be warning me instead of telling me about the tits, that there's a third bar, but, you know, what can you do there?
Game Difficulty: Challenge or Narrative?
00:22:03
Speaker
I talked to this on my stream last night, but I came across my favorite sign in ah the the DLC, and I made my way like down through this pit, and I entered a room, and there was a ladder, and on the ground, it just said, snake, oh, snake, ahead. And I was like, oh, god damn it, there's going to be like a snake at the top of this ladder. And so I'm climbing up, and I'm being a very careful, very careful. And I'm 30 seconds into the ladder, and I'm like, oh, this is a snake eater thing.
00:22:29
Speaker
And I wrote back down, just like give the the note a thumbs up cause I was like, hell yeah. That is a very good goof. And then you climb the ladder the longest ladder and it was really good. No snakes at the top. I love it. It was a goof I saw on Twitter where it was um first message, then explosion because everyone who was stopping to read it was getting rant run over by an explosive barrel. eighty me tune shit That's like very funny. Yeah. You know, the messages the whole messages thing and the ability to summon dudes makes me think that Dark Souls neld and Elden Ring are designed with summoning help in mind. They were always designed to be sort of experienced communally. That's why so much of it is obscure and hard to figure out. yeah but's there's a response There's a tendency in the audience now that Git Good is sort of like this cultural thing to sort of create this expectation that you're supposed to be able to do it by yourself.
00:23:24
Speaker
Because there have been people like ah saying that if you if you summon, then you haven't beaten it for realsies. That just means I have a massive cock. Yeah. but it's that the The problem is it's reached a point of popularity to where it has no
Genre Fatigue and Player Experience
00:23:41
Speaker
identity. like The fan base has no identity anymore. right yeah And that's the same thing with Star Wars. without Anything. When it becomes big enough, it's like there you say, oh, I'm a FromSoft fan. That doesn't mean anything anymore. I'm a FromSaw fan, but i i I play the games relatively casual. Like I beat all the games to Sekiro. I feel like I play them casually and I like digging into the lore. Then there's other people who are like, I'm on New Game Plus 9 and I play only naked, super ladle. And that's how i that's how I get through that game. And so we're both fans of this, but like there's no
00:24:14
Speaker
it's It's just read a point reached a point where there's no general consensus. and This was something I've been expecting for a while. and um you know We're starting to see a little bit of the backlash now. and i'm just I'm just curious where it goes from here. well it's my It's my worry that Chrome Software sort of internalized this notion that they make the hard games. and I feel like there was much more to Dark Souls than that. But it so you know, the cultural understanding is that that's that game that's really hard. And they just feel like they have to keep, you know, living up to that reputation. It's like the the comedian who's well known for the one like ah catchphrase gag that they did in the 80s. And they will want to chat shows. And they say their catchphrase. And then they bugger off again. ah That's that's on software now. It's like, Hey, guy yeah.
00:25:01
Speaker
It's even harder than the last one. It's got 5,000 more hit points than the last boss that had the most hit points. Fucking, uh, orphan of course, or whatever it was. Have you ever, uh, like, has this happened with a genre or a series with you before where you've sort of, uh, like genre fatigue or series fatigue or anything like that, either of you?
00:25:25
Speaker
i'm so I don't know. I think there are certainty there are certainly games that have sort of bought into their own hype in that way, in that they've tried to really play up what they're best known for. I think Suda51 might have suffered from that. He sort of got gain a reputation as the guy who makes the weird post-punk games, so he's tried to play that up a bit. like I remember Shadows of the Damned was sold as a Suda51 trip. yeah implying that it would be it would have it would have his usual mad cap random energy. and it was And really that game was more Shinji Mikami's baby if you ask me. so i was yeah I'm gonna, it's gonna be weird to hear me out.
00:26:08
Speaker
I have gone through many things where I'll be a fan of something and not to say that like, it just sounds hipster. This is where we're going to run with it. And then we'll figure out a name for me at the end, like Christopher Nolan. Love his, his older work. Love his style. Love what he puts on offer very much like experience-y, right? And he lacks in say, sometimes storytelling, definitely women's perspective. Okay. And then you get big Oppenheimer. Now the things that, like, we didn't care for it because that's not why we were there. Sorry, are you saying Christopher Nolan only got big with Oppenheimer? No, no, no, I'm saying at that there was a point where eventually, like, you're a stardom.
Attraction to Difficult Games
00:26:46
Speaker
is brings in everyone. And now everyone has to say, these are the people that before weren't watching you. And now they're here. Same thing with why Elden Ring at the start. A lot of people came to it not knowing it was a Souls like because they don't know from software. They're just like, Oh, what's that Elden Ring thing? Oh, cool. You saw George RR Martin's name in the credits. Exactly. How many people are playing? Yeah. How many people are playing this DLC? Not knowing that. I mean, historically speaking, the DLC is kind of spank you. And they're hard to find. The gag with From Software Games is that this always happens. Like, From Software Games' launches are always big. They've got that huge dedicated fan base and all the normos. Here are the guys saying, hey, this game's gonna be great. It's the From Software. They made great games. They made Dark Souls. So they got that reputation for making great games. So the normos come along and go, oh, well, I guess I'll try out this game. But everyone says it's so good. And then they get, like, spanked over a vaulting horse.
00:27:35
Speaker
And um the game so the games, there's always like this ah early launch backlash against it for high difficulty, which we're seeing now with the DLC. But that's that's always happened, I think. I'm just but I'm just saying, like, I feel like it's gotten too far because I'm a Souls fan and it's gotten too much for me. So you think that's just like a natural like you you've grown. Old. You've been playing these guys. Yeah, I don't know. You've played these games for 12, 13 years and you're just like, I don't know, you if you if you eat the same meal for 12 years straight, you're gonna want something else. And not like they don't make games that rapidly, you know? they They've released whatever, seven, eight main games ah since Demon's Souls. But i'm you know I'm just wondering if that's such a natural, certain people tap out at a certain point, and it's one of those, it's not you, it's me thing.
00:28:26
Speaker
so I mean, I've just prescribed myself to being a Miyazaki fan, more so than just Souls games in general. Everyone's like, oh, you know, these are the games that are S-tier, A-tier to me. It's like Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Elden Ring. Those are the three. Anything ah after that is just a bit lesser. So as much as it is fatigue, it's just like, were they all that great to begin with? And not not in a retroactive sense, meaning as like, I think at a certain point, a fan does have to look inside and go, why did I like it? What did I like? Or did you only like it for the difficulty? If so, in this might be your reckoning, you know? Well, the difficulty was certainly part of it because ah ah the sense of relief and satisfaction you get from finally beating the boss is that's what you're there for. That's the hit. That's the high.
00:29:16
Speaker
But at some point, the frustration getting there just wasn't worth it. you You got to like keep the player on a sort of knife edge balance. You got to keep them sort of motivated to keep trying without breaking their spirit. And my spirit's broken. exactly I'll never be the same again. but Hard to get up nowadays. like I am the kind of person who will question and go, do i what is it that I like about hard games to the point where I will seek out some of the hardest games, not to fulfill them, but to fulfill myself. And then I go, okay, there's actually an art to being difficult, enjoyable, and making me want to keep going to it. Dark Souls games, from software, whatever they're called, they're not the hardest games. They are probably the most popular, difficult games, right?
Open World Design and Engagement
00:30:02
Speaker
But that's the the conversation always just goes straight to difficulty. Why not talk about the like, there's strange openings of some bosses. What about the lack of variety? Like my early complaint right now, the map feels really sparse. I'm out here traveling, exploring. There's nothing in these woods. I open a chest. That's not a mimic. And there's like, I agree with you there, especially compared to core Elden Ring. Again, I haven't seen the entirety of the map, but I found three fragments and it just feels like I'll go through an area and be like, It feels like there should have been something here. like and There are fewer catacombs, fewer mines, fewer like a little well things, ah which um you know I don't want to... Well, I'm shocked. We've gone 31 minutes and I haven't brought up Zelda yet, but Zelda does a thing where every time I'm like, that looks neat and I go there and there is something neat there. And maybe it's just a little Korok seed, but there's something for my troubles.
00:30:53
Speaker
but he you know Difficulty crosses the line for me when it feels like I'm losing because of randomness and not because I haven't quite gotten enough practice. And that kind of feels like the the problem, well, I haven't like tried it too many times, but the third phase in that Nine Souls boss fight I was talking about, because now you're suddenly dealing with like multiple opponents who are all like out of sync with each other. So it's hard to, you know, be able to respond to attacks in the way you've sort of been training yourself. And when like a boss fight, like in Elden Ring, like say they'll have a boss, like have an attack with just throws 500 missiles that randomly land around you. And whether or not you get hit by one or not is sort of like up to a roll of the dice. That feels like where it's taken the piss, where difficulty is taking the piss. Oh, does, does nine souls have um difficulty options like in the menu? Can you put it on easy or is it just, it is what it is?
00:31:53
Speaker
No, I don't think so. I don't remember difficulty settings. I'm just curious like both of you, like how, if a game has difficulty sliders, if it has options, if it has, you know, whether it's something as simple as easy, medium, hard, or something as granular as ah percentages for your own damage you give, damage you receive. Yeah, this is so like, if you hit a point in the game that's giving you trouble, do you have any qualms with just changing the difficulty? Because I do not anymore. Like the second, if I'm hitting something where I'm like, Oh, this is going to be something that's going to take me a little too long. I'm just going to change the difficulty down.
00:32:30
Speaker
And I don't get any like like fucking the get good crowd could come and I'm like, that's totally fine. This is not what I'm here for. I'm not here for like personal achievements in the games. I am here to, to enjoy myself while, while experiencing a a story or experiencing, you know, what this, what these people have created. Okay. The chat's letting us know. Nine Souls does have a story mode, but you know, that's not what I want. That's not what I want. And that's why I don't remember it, because if I see story mode and standard mode, I'm just gonna go standard mode, obviously. but I'm not here for no challenge whatsoever. I want some challenge. That's part of the game. But for this boss, like, are you just gonna quit the game because you're frustrated with this boss? Or like, are you would you put it down to a story mode, get through the boss and just move past it?
00:33:13
Speaker
There's puzzles in The Last of Us Part 2 to where you can just, any puzzle, you can just open up a menu, you just go to skip puzzle. There was one puzzle where I'm like, I don't know what you want from me. I can't figure this out. I just skipped the puzzle and I was done with it. And I was like, this is great. I feel like I'm happy to do that if I'm like trying to get through a game for for work. Sure. But if, but I'm sort of hesitant to do it if I'm just playing a game for my own amusement, because it feels like, not so much giving up, it feels like breaking immersion, you know, sort of ruining my um attachment to the internal fiction of the game. It's
Player Choice and Difficulty Settings
00:33:48
Speaker
like, you know what I mean? It's like, I had to like, dip out of the ghost train and say, hey, sorry, this ghost train's a bit scary, could you tone it down a bit? And then the rest of the ghost train's never gonna have the same effect because you've had to dip out and say- Yeah, is this a ghost train with actual ghosts or is this the genre of games you're talking about? I mean, if I'm talking about ghost actual- No. I've talked about actual literal ghost trains now.
00:34:10
Speaker
So if you if you have to yeah have to duck out of the ghost train and ask them to tone down the scary ghosts, then sure there's you know you're going to feel humiliated. You're not going to feel like you're in the ghost train anymore. my I don't know. it's just okay Again, I feel I'm going to be the one that gets roasted today. Should have been the odds. ah ah lower well get rest my sense of pride is not based in the games like oh this he tapped out he used a mimic cuz like I don't care yeah is that yeah now what the game doesnt judge
00:34:46
Speaker
The game doesn't judge, but maybe I do. Well, that's all I use. That's like Catholic guilt. Like, if i whenever i I get something like kind of off base in my writing, because I care more about that than the game, that's when I'm like, flagellating, absolutely like hot showers. I'm stupid. I'm Stokely. Shame. Yeah, shame. Absolute shame. That's what gets me nowadays. More so than like, oh, I use the mimic tears, you know? Yeah. My tears. So it's a sense of like, where where is your pride? And I feel like, yeah, for a lot of gamers, maybe that sense of pride does come through gaming. It is escapism, right? That's not to paint them as some losers who have never achieved anything in real life. But again, introspection. Why are you pacing so much?
00:35:28
Speaker
Especially to someone like me, who is a professional game reviewer, and has been playing games since I was a child. I mean, there's, I mean, I gotta ask myself, if I can't beat this, who can? I mean, I am ostensibly an expert in my chosen field. Or at least, you know, that's, that's what I feel like people expect of me. I thought you were a narrative specialist though. Yeah, but we're not even the like we're not even in the upper end of who's good at games at this company. I'm speaking of me and Yahtzee. For us, you're probably the upper earth third. But like, I don't see Nick, they're better at games than me. That's fine. It doesn't doesn't impact writing at all.
00:36:06
Speaker
Also, I should specify interactive narrative specialist. and Sometimes challenge can be part of interactive narrative. And that's why I've appreciated it in games like Dark Souls. Do you think it's failed you then from the interactive narrative aspect? Because now it's like the old spice heads of like, is it now just spicy for the sake of spice? And they have failed the narrative side, interactive narrative side.
FromSoft's Design Philosophy
00:36:26
Speaker
I suppose it probably has. I mean, I don't really have much understanding of who the hell I'm fighting in Elden Ring and why. I mean, whereas before you've mentioned like the the butterfly, you know, the Capra demon, even though that was a POS fight, it's still added to the story, did it not? Kinda, yeah. I mean, I sort of understand that I'm in a sort of an undead world. There's this, I mean, even on the base level, I understand why there's this just deep one demon hanging around.
00:36:54
Speaker
in this ah undead city, it's as part of a symbol of sort of the corruption that the city is undergoing. Oh, he's got the key. That's his, that's, he's defending his mother and he's in, I don't know why he's in that closet specifically, but you know it's the son protecting his mother. I get that. It feels like in Elden Ring, maybe I've just ah need to watch more Vaati videos to try and figure out why exactly was the hippo there, you know? Yeah. one thing i want from software I think still does a good job of um store still providing a bit of a diegetic air to it all. I feel a lot of Soulslike really like that and it has sort of just gone down to nice world that loops back into itself and big boss fight. I keep thinking about Thymesia, which was an indie Soulslike I was playing not too long ago, which is clearly like trying to eat Bloodborne's lunch.
00:37:45
Speaker
Uh, and I got to like the first boss that was like this magic man with the top hat. And I beat him like, uh, I got through his first stage, got through a second phase. Oh, third stage. And I was like, no, no bad game. Stop playing now.
00:38:02
Speaker
And, uh, like and that game really felt like it wasn't really explaining what the hell I was doing or what I was there. Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious, uh, I mean, I guess I've been curious for a while of like, what, what do they do next? Because like in some interviews this last week, Miyazaki has talked about how he has always wanted to make a traditional turn-based JRPG. And I'm like, my God, I would love nothing more than to see like what that means from him. And like FromSoft used, to FromSoft is far and away a better developer than they've ever been.
00:38:35
Speaker
I think, arguably, they used to be a more interesting developer, and I know you hate that word interesting, but they just used to be a more varied developer. They would dabble in in true survival horror. They would dabble in sort of family-friendly puzzle games. They would dabble in... Remember Ninja Blade? Yeah, Ninja Blade, and Cookies and Cream, and Echo Night, and Kingsfield, and Lost Kingdoms, and Otogi. There was kind of a breadth to their portfolio that is now games that feel like different flavor of the same thing. like It's no longer a restaurant, it's an ice cream shop.
Community Opinions and Super Chats
00:39:09
Speaker
It's got 31 flavors, but it's all ice cream. um And I would kind of like to see what else is on the menu, even though I really like their ice cream.
00:39:17
Speaker
Shout out to me. On that note, perhaps it's we it's way past the point we should start doing super chats, because there's been a lot of them. There's a lot of opinions on this matter. Don't be here a while. Let's go. Yeah, we should so just start hammering through them. Dr. Theo, member for five months, and Tiptja then gives us another $5 and says, I think one part is expectations. Imagine buying a silly N64-type platformer only to blindside you with the hardest challenges in the market. Well, I think this is part of a three-part series. I think this is a three-part series. You need to read his next message and then message after that. All right. His next message says, you can always just, you know, put all of this in one super chat and give us $15 in that super chat. That's an option. Might be super. Might be a safe phone box. Meanwhile, Shipwreck64 always advertised itself as an ARG. So you go into it knowing it's going to have ARG level puzzles.
00:40:09
Speaker
And then Dr. Theo says, I suppose there can be a cool way to blindside the player with something different, but for that to work you basically have to develop two games. so 64 is a that's like a Shyamalan twist game where it's um it builds itself as it was like a lost 64-bit platformer that came out but they had to pull because it had some spookiness you know behind the development and behind the actual game itself um which that's like a tough thing when we talk about like Doki Doki Literature Club or Frog Fractions or any game like that it's like how do you it's hard to recommend it to people without telling them that there is a twist to it that it is more than meets the eyes
00:40:45
Speaker
real quick. Yeah. Ducky Ducky literature club springs of mind. Yeah. Now here's the thing though, expectations. Marty, is this different from what you were expecting? It doesn't feel not par for the course. This feels very like, yeah, this is from software. This feels spot on, you know? And this feels like Elden Ring to where I got to the first two bosses and I was like, oh, they're kicking the shit out of me. I better go and explore. And then when I was like, oh, these Skadu tree things, like this is what the real leveling up is. Like this is, these are genuinely more important than what my character level is.
00:41:19
Speaker
And so in the same way, in the main game, leveling up my character felt like the way, oh, I'll come back when I'm 10 levels higher and and maybe have some cooler gear. When I hit those first two bosses, I was like, oh, well, let me actually explore this world, find these things, upgrade this and revisit them. And then when I revisited them, the the the the jail, the jail guard right at the beginning was he wasn't a problem for me. Um, and so, uh, but that is also where that problem that we just talked about came from of I'm exploring the world. I like finding these things, but I'm like, Oh, I wish there was a little bit more here. I wish it was like a little bit more to like peak my interest and and reward my curiosity for, for poking around different corners of the world.
00:41:58
Speaker
Yeah, so so so much is so much is like, is it too hard? Is it not hard enough? As far as Dr. Theo's questioning of expectations, this is pretty on par with what I was expecting at the very least. So if anyone feels blindsided from this, um they might not just know what From Software's about, what Miyazaki's about. so Yeah, I mean, it feels weird to say you're blindsided by it if you have to get all the way to Moog before you can unlock the DLC. Yeah, just getting through, like, as there i think was the problem this of people being like, Oh, I have my character that I've curated for hundreds of hours in the main game, and I can one shot anything. But then you enter this DLC, and there is that flattening out equalizer kind of the ah so of the scanu tree fragments. And so I think that's where how did you feel when you started the extra dungeon in persona four golden, where they take away all your shit and your stats right at the start?
00:42:52
Speaker
I actually liked that because I played Persona 4 Golden after Persona 5. And so by that point, I felt like I was like, oh, I'm like I'm sleepwalking through these battles. And so finally throwing a dungeon enemy to where I had to think ah that made me feel good. Felt like an SMT dungeon. Yeah, I appreciated it. I mean, feels like every Persona game I played, combat gets kind of piss easy by the end.
Balancing Challenge with Accessibility
00:43:14
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, Gildon Yettich gives five dollars, and says, games are meant to be played. I'm insulted if a game is so easy it plays itself, but if their best efforts are futile, then that too is railroading. So, uh, games are meant to be played. Yes, but who- this is not to spoil earlier- later writing. Is, uh, I don't think-
00:43:35
Speaker
The inept should limit our liberties, but also they shouldn't be policed by the most callous of us. So where is that line of like, yeah you know, oh, this is hard. It's like, yeah, but this person is also just not very capable. um versus yeah It's nothing, throws out cigar, missing a leg. Like on the one arm so on the one hand, the ah no child left behind policy drags the rest of the school system down. Yeah. But on the other hand, you can't treat everyone like they're in the like they're in like the ah accelerated program. Yeah. Yeah.
00:44:06
Speaker
So like where where where is that line there? And Miyazaki's always from software, the whole company has chosen to cater to a very specific sort of audience. So you almost have to wonder if you're even part of that audience again with like Oppenheimer, or are you part of Nolan's audience that he caters to? who It's catered to an audience, but I think they also have done a great job of like getting people into their cult, right? like I don't mean that pejoratively. I know that sounded pejorative, but like there are plenty of people I know personally who have...
00:44:37
Speaker
ah hit that point where they're like, Oh, I get it now. Like I can see the code. And they went from someone who was relatively casual with these games to like, I've met it on its terms and I'm finally speaking its language. And now I have quote unquote, got good. um Yeah. And so the moment, the first time I really got into Dark Souls, I previously was sort of lost on me, but then like, I watched some nice let's plays a bit, learned a bit more about the law. Gave it another chance, and I think specifically it was the Gargoyle fight. I got to the Gargoyle fight, and then I was like, I get it now. Yeah. Yeah, which is a nice nice feeling, and not a lot of games have. Let's move on quickly, because as I say, there's a lot of these. Spicy Dot BP gives $2. It says, people upset that a hard game they bought is hard. Oh, here they come. Here come the Roasters. The Roasters, the Spicy Dots.
00:45:31
Speaker
Yeah. Well, $2 per roast seems fair to me. One thing though, I do think we get hung up a little bit too much on like difficulty, like you said, with that boss with the um three phases, right? Is it hard in itself? Is it the, is it the run to it? Is it the starting over? Is it the learning? You know, I think a lot of things can contribute to something being ah difficult. Like I said, some are like, I keep saying people are saying that um a lot of the bosses rushed the door. And some people strat is like to get prepped, you know, some make the, some in the mimic, do the buffs, all that kind of stuff. But like the blasted hippo will come knocking straight at the door. You know, Capra demon always rush the door with his two doggy friends. Yeah. You got to run in and run up straight to that ledge, you know? So, but also to to the grandest point, ah so so something you said in cuphead is it's easy to complain while you're getting your ass beat.
00:46:23
Speaker
And yeah so you almost have to wonder, you know, how many of these are just straight up? I rage quit and I had to blow off steam somewhere. Yeah. Well, that's why I said the designer has to walk a fine line. Gotta keep them frustrated so they want to like teach this boss a lesson, but you can't frustrate them so much they give up. Well, it's funny because it's the same, uh, people are always like, you need to take, uh, a pre-release reviews or the grain of salt because the way they're playing a game is very different than anyone else. They're like, Oh, this is a 75 hour game that I need to beat in 10 days. And so I need to play it nonstop and keep bashing my head against the wall in the same way, anyone who's made it a definitive statement about this game.
00:47:03
Speaker
72 hours after it came out is doing the same thing, right? It's like, you're not sitting with your thoughts. You're not really like collecting and and thinking about how you
Trends Towards Accessible Gaming
00:47:11
Speaker
feel. And like Frost said, like getting out of not being a prisoner of the moment of, of either something that's giving you hype or something that's causing you a pain in the ass. Uh, Tommy's holding him in for seven months in tip jar. Thank you very much. weley thomas Leslie Thomas scares five Canadian and says, all games require you to get good. The question is, when do you get good? And what does good look like? Well, now we're just arguing semantics. Yeah, I played banana game. Don't take much action. Granted, I think like 20% of people played banana game don't have the only achievement, which is to click the banana.
00:47:46
Speaker
yeah That's not true. All games need you to get good. I played Hellblade 2 on the easiest difficulty, and I was at no point ever good at that combat. I don't think anyone is. No, you have to learn when I kill a guy and I throw his body into someone else and the next guy comes. Like I didn't have anything to do with that. It's cool. You were still working off a skill baseline. Like, uh, old people don't understand how the two analog sticks set up works. It's true. You gotta to get good at using two analog sticks.
00:48:21
Speaker
I mean, we're starting to see a lot of no-conflict games. Tiny Glade used during the next fest. No conflict in that? You're just making a cottage. Is that an over-correction, do you think? I do think so, yes. I think the trends are always correcting themselves. I think Dark Souls was in retaliation to the Ghost Train rides, and now we're kind of like... I want a little aftercare.
00:48:45
Speaker
like Nine Souls and Another Crab's Treasure, both accessibility ah options. Yeah, there you go. like you know I like ah like Another Crab's Treasure. I played it without even needing to use the gun or anything. and It was fun and had an interesting story, but it didn't feel the need to top itself challenge-wise.
00:49:07
Speaker
Uh, Alex Armstrong gives side dollars and says, didn't games like devil may cry of a feature where you unlock harder boats and something that Yahtzee defended where more challenge and content is good. Yeah. And I don't know if you're phrasing that like it's a gotcha, Alex Armstrong, but yeah, some people, if like you just appreciate some people appreciates having, uh, an extra unlocking an extra difficulty after they've mastered previous games so they can enjoy the game again with fresh challenge. Me, I've never really been into that sort of thing. If I replay a game, it'll be like six months down the line and playing it the exact same difficulty I played it on before.
00:49:44
Speaker
There's a there is a handful of games where you need to unlock easy mode, which I think is like... It was the one of the first to do that. If you die too many times, they unlock easy mode for you, which is the first case of having to totally humiliate yourself in order to get through the game. That is one thing, but like there was a Pocky and Rocky remastered, which is an old remaster of an old Super Nintendo game came out and the game is hard as nails, but you need to accumulate enough currency to buy easy mode.
00:50:15
Speaker
And so, but I'm like, what why is easy mode not just there? Like, what are we doing? Technically, aren't a lot of games, essentially you've played by the end of the game, you are, you are the strongest, you will be stronger than everything else. It is now easy mode. A lot of Metroidvanias at least do that. Hollow Knight, you're in easy mode now. I've always said it's part of the fun to be able to go back to the starting area and kick the shit out of the things that used to be a problem. Hell yeah. yeah ah so My audio gives $5 and says here's a bit of extra money now you can choose to say something funny. I'm very tired. Oh, nice. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. and Thank you for this lovely ah money that's so currently falling on me. Oh, the I shall catch it all and spend it on treats.
00:51:05
Speaker
Revo not the snob who gives five euros and says he's got nothing original to say about this. Oh, that didn't stop most people, Revo not the snob. So I'll just say that you look positively glowing today, yachts, yachts, queens, some might say. Yachts, queen. Okay. That very good.
00:51:22
Speaker
Jorth87 gives 50 Danish Chrono and says, Cyberpunk 2077 DLC had a mid boss fight that almost made me bite the desk in frustration. Had to stop, think, and respect my car. Very happy when finally beat it. That too, you can re respect, can't you? Am you an Elden Ring? Yeah. Yeah, you go to the immune cow that you didn't beat. Right. night out Oh no, I did beat her in the end. As I said, I got as far as fatty and skinny before I dropped off. Yeah. I remember going back to Hogwarts and she had that. that She was alive and being nice and weird. All of a sudden when I wasn't reading the super chat, when you said it and you said, respect my car. And I didn't realize it was short for character. And I thought like, what, you had to like respect you. Your car had
Community Support and Overcoming Challenges
00:52:13
Speaker
stats. and there was that thaty pun That's what Elden ring needed. Fucking ah convertible.
00:52:19
Speaker
Fucking like Chevy. Just a shadowow drive drive along the drive through the scenery with fucking spikes on your bumper or something. Don't give them ideas. They'll give torrent DLC armor. Don't. The Stalin DLRP gives five dollars and says it honestly feels like the bosses in shadows are for a different game entirely. So many are just beyond too aggressive for your movement and stam. They're just very, they are very, used ah maybe you should, uh, respect your build. all this snow but la pay Yeah. If you do kind of want like some slow going boys, so they're very aggressive. Yeah. They are rather aggressive. I could see like that being a very valid critique of it all. The only slow going one is what the wicker man right at the start. Yeah. The wicker man.
00:53:14
Speaker
The book that heard that uncle height gives five euros and says community is also a factor. If one just says get good and the other helps you. I know which I'd stamp is too hard and move on and which I could beat. Do you think they're being held hostage by the internet? Cause like in 2011, when Dark Souls came through, the internet was not nearly as ubiquitous as it is now. We did not know what to expect. We didn't know the tricks. Now we have over a decade of Soulsock experience, internet experience. Uh, this is just like all he, like he's just just fighting for his life to make a spicy game. Cause what would be worse if everyone said this game's too hard or this game's too easy? Way too easy.
00:53:57
Speaker
Mm. So is it a cry for help? There's plenty of examples on both sides of the spectrum coming out. Like Still Wakes the Deep came out recently. And I thought that game was way too easy because it's kind of a... But they don't have the reputation. Kind of a Walking Sim-y affair. I don't know about that. But isn't it supposed to be a Walking Sim? I guess. Well, there are gameplay sections that had do your standard sort of walking sim horror game where you have to avoid the thing and get out of the room without the thing spotting you. Oh, gotcha. Standard Blueber Team shit, really. Right. Oh, you don't see that. Come on, then. Come on. Be nice. Oh, of course. All right. We'll call it standard frictional games shit as well. OK, good.
00:54:48
Speaker
All right. Uh, Bubba's big blasts member for four months in the green gang says the difficulty of stalker also made it stand out in stalker. You had a quick save Bubba's big blast.
00:55:01
Speaker
I think I'm still having a Bubba's big glass Bubba's big glass. It's a good name. Uh, I never, I never played the stalker games. It looks like they got jump scares. I'm a timid boy. I don't think I've ever really got Stalker. I got Stalker. I like Stalker the movie. It's a good movie. Doesn't really count. I don't watch movies as you know. This is an old movie. You might watch it. It's Russian. You love Russians. I like the Russian national anthem.
00:55:38
Speaker
So you she singing with meja ah ah that's that's a tune you can get behind that. That's a tune that pumps me up. I mean, compare that to fucking God Save the King.
FromSoft's Influence on Gaming Culture
00:55:52
Speaker
but but bla the bla bla blood blood blood blood blood blow Where's the punch? That's parliament. first Where's the stirring energy? Mm-hmm. This is a no stir peanut butter. Anyway, FoxD gives side dollars and says, I think I'm too old for soul's likes. 12 year old me who tried over and over to beat Mike Tyson and punch out would love Elden Ring. Old me, less so. Even, I mean, even at 29, I was kind of like, Oh, you know what, maybe it's just time I retire from these things. But like you said, played another crab's treasure. Seems to have reignited a little.
00:56:37
Speaker
I got into Dark Souls late, as I said. I was replaying Bloodborne relatively recently in my crotchety 30s. I mean, all the all the kids these days are into speed running and shit. Maybe they just that's what they're trying to cater to. Like the ultra high difficulty, ultra challenge streaming set. Maybe we've just overdone it. Marty, you I imagine have taken in far less soul's likes than we have. How do you feel about your relationship with with them? You probably have a healthier relationship with them.
00:57:15
Speaker
ah My whole thing is I don't think I like the Souls-like genre. I think I like FromSoft games. i feel everyone When I see Liza P., when I see like Lords of the Fallen, even the ones that are like relatively praised, I look at them and I'm like, well, that's not what like you guys don't, you mentioned earlier, you don't get the thing I like about these games and the difficulty isn't the thing I like about these games. yeah I think they're, you know, I like their worlds. You know what I like? Their sense of place. These other games don't give me a sense of place. um Uh, there you go again. Benjamin Street, remember for three months and tip chat? Thank you very much. Tsunami Dusia gives $20 and says, nah, thank you. And then Danny123451 gives 20 English pounds and says, the Elden Ring DLC really isn't any harder than the base game. If something's too tough, go explore and come back when you're stronger. On top of that, you go in with an endgame character who will be much better prepared.
00:58:10
Speaker
Well, except you don't, do you? From what I've heard, everyone gets, uh, evened out. You go in with an endgame care to will be much better prepared. I mean, uh, I have no actual numbers on the thing, but again, allegedly, if you go in with new game and new game plus, you're kind of boning yourself. Yeah. So now you have to wonder, do I level a whole new character or, you know, so, but then that, that just goes back to my whole a thing of from software. It doesn't like to talk to the player much. And sometimes it's not for the best.
00:58:44
Speaker
Also, it is hard for me, and this isn't against Danny or anyone in the chat who's currently saying it, whenever anyone says this game isn't hard, my first thought is to disregard them because that is such a in the eye of the beholder thing. ah Like that is just not a, that's like not an across the board thing. If you say the game is hard, it's not hard for you, that's fine. you can get The game could totally not be hard for you, but that is not a, You can't look at it and be like, well, it's not hard. I don't know why anyone's having trouble with it. Like that's not how difficulty in games work. I remember making this joke when I was reviewing Dark Souls was like, uh, it's one of the people saying, Oh, that game's not hard at all. As long as you know, to pick up the such and such ring that's behind two hidden walls in a secret area and currently on fire. Of course, it's easy if you know how that just seems like how's the hard. part
00:59:35
Speaker
Yeah. It just seems like the other extreme, isn't it? Someone saying a game is too easy is the same thing as someone saying it's too hard. Neither really has any, any credence. No one really has. no Yeah. It's like when you like go online and search for problems, uh, certain solutions to problems with your hardware. And, uh, the only reply like two weeks later, someone saying, well, my the video card does it. All right. You're not helping as whole. Yeah.
01:00:07
Speaker
ah Dr. Theogus who doesn't says thoughts on geometry dash Those sure are two words. Dr. They are two words that have been put together I think that's like a big, popular, like ah ah almost like a flappy birdie, endless runner kind of thing that I think Jack said his kids are obsessed with, I want to say.
Cultural Impact on Game Design
01:00:27
Speaker
Oh, okay. sort definite but there look if If you want a little something like that feeling of hitting your wall and kind of excitement, good rhythm and whatnot, but you don't have too much time to devote or you start at the doctor's office and need a soul's like, play you some Geometry Dash. Jesus Christ.
01:00:46
Speaker
my cortisol I'm stuck at the doctors and I need my selfless. They're going to take my appendix out, but I need to get that recursive. Let me stress myself out before the surgery. yeah Let me get my blood pressure up as a joke. Man, I'm really bored in this um MRI machine. I'm just going to get my phone out. yeah i don't bring your phone into an MRI machine. ah But that's, ah that's ah that's a good question that because ah traditionally, that is a very hard game same as for what is it Kaizo Mario? Yeah, what yeah that that's that fucking nuts, Mario. Kaizo I want to be the guy that sort of thing that was always like troll games. That was like the precursor to troll games made made for streamers to yell at on stream. I'm most like a duck. Hmm.
01:01:33
Speaker
Is there a game called moves like a duck? Are you saying if it looks like a duck and moves like a duck? if It and moves like a duck, you know? Elden Ring. Is it a troll game? There's trolls. trolls There's a whole valley filled with trolls in that game. There's trolls, yeah. ah Chef Roller gives $5 and says, my biggest complaint about FromSoft is that you can't critique the games without fans dismissing criticisms with Madca's bad. See the Elden Ring DLC reviews. It's the best. The best gripe. Absolutely. And yes, if you want a good example, scroll down and look at the comments of this on this very podcast after the VOD goes up. it's ah Again, it's ah it's when anything's hit a critical popularity.
01:02:13
Speaker
It's yeah Star Wars, it's Game of Thrones, it's Star Trek, it's Doctor Who, it's it's anything, it's Zelda. Taser poster gives 5.99 euros. It says FromSoft is trying to make Nintendo hard games just for the sake of being hard. Well, I'm not sure that's a valid argument, should I suppose to? Because, you know, maybe they are. And if they are, so what? Oh, Nintendo hard like NES hard. Sorry. Nintendo's company. like the The back end of the Mario games, you know, like the last 30 levels you unlock after beating the main game where they finally just take it all out on you. Yeah. We've moved all four. There is no four anymore. Yeah.
01:02:56
Speaker
and serious levels. I don't know the news for the sake of being hard, um but now we're arguing what, intent, right? For anyone who is obsessed with Miyazaki's history, I've told this story many times. were it was It was a snowy day. They were trying to drive their cars up the hill, but there was no way to actually gain any traction. So they had to rely on the cars behind them to push them up the hill and over. And that's where he's like, oh, that's the sort of cooperative mechanic I want to make. Which makes you think he's a little sick because you know, one dude would be stuck in the end. Sure. Yeah. Also you saying that story and being like, I've told this many times. I thought you were going to insert yourself in the story. I was on a road trip. I was with, he said, push the car. I couldn't do it. He said, try finger by the hole. And it worked in a swamp.
01:03:46
Speaker
Danny 123451 comes back with five pounds and says also I would argue that Sekiro is the hardest of the FromSoft games including the recent Elden Ring DLC. That's the one I forgot to bring up. I'm sure Sekiro was the hardest one for you because it was the one that played the least like the games you were used to. The games that you found easy because you were used to them. Yeah, that's the one I was wanting to bring up earlier where Sekiro a lot of people were ah thrown off ah thrown off by it but they kind of left without
01:04:16
Speaker
They left in a huff without saying difficulty. They were just like, it's just not how I want to play. And we kind of accepted that. So, you know, that that could have well happened here. It's just not how I want to play. Okay, well valid. Simple as that. Ian, I and Patriots 215 gives $5 and says, there's a reason I've beaten Stranger of Paradise in its entirety in the time it took me to beat Margit in Elden Ring. Because you wanted to embrace chaos. Man, you kind of suck. I am Pedro 215. Stranger Paradise is a really long game. Even I beat Margit.
Gaming Metaphors and Design Implications
01:04:52
Speaker
Wait, which one is Margit? That's the he's first first boss. He comes out like three times. Well, he comes back later, but I've also beaten him then. And then I don't know. I assume they met Margate right at the front gate of the castle. The first one. That looks foul. Tarn is that one. Yeah. I love him. He's excited to get this Stranger Paradise game by the... Did you review Stranger Paradise, Yahtzee? Yeah, that's the Final Fantasy one, right? Yeah. Did you like it? I'm going to assume no. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. I'm going to assume no. I just that game on easy.
01:05:29
Speaker
Yeah, whatever, go nuts. Red Dwarf 42 goes 4.99 and says, this ghost train slander must stop. Jungle Cruise and It's a Small World are delightful rides. Those aren't ghost trains, Red Dwarf 42. What? You said there's stuff happens around you. Yeah, Jungle Cruise is like a boat ride where the where you ah you have a funny dude telling you stories about the things you look at. And It's a Small World is ah hell on earth. I thought literally those are what you were describing when you described ghost train rides, where you just sit there and the things happen at you. No, I was specifically referring to ghost trains. ah No one knows what those are. Is that a British thing? Are you talking about like hay haunted hay rides? The haunted mansion in ah Disneyland to continue the comparison is a ghost train. Right.
01:06:21
Speaker
Is it an aesthetic thing? is it yes like Oh, it's an aesthetic thing. So it's interchangeable, but it's aesthetic. Okay, I get you now. When you're talking about games, you're not talking about aesthetic. No, when I say Ghost Train Ride, when I'm talking about games, I'm talking about something that's just a linear sequence of encounters that are all disconnected from each other. And that you just go through, like I'm shouted. Oh, oh, okay. I get you kind of earlier when I brought up ghost trains. I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about ghost trains as an aesthetic. How they got scary ghosts in them. Yeah. So this is why we make our own instead of repurposing move on now. um so okay oh it's fine i just I guess I just like ghost trains as a concept and boats and boats. Denmark. Sorry to keep you waiting. Denmark. Yes.
01:07:10
Speaker
well gives five dollars and says, I think it's too hard and it lasts for more than four hours. But you should be referring to prior pisms there, I think is the joke. ah Leonard Blohm gives five euros and says, Yahtzee, what would you do if Dan Olson made a two hour video essay about youing, which includes a one in one to 12 scale diorama of your office? Yeah, I saw that. Bit weird, wasn't it? But I think the point of that video that I think goes over some people's heads is that it's more a video about Dan Olson than it is a video about the Angry Video Game Nerd. Yeah. You would want i watch. I haven't watched it yet. No, no, it's in my queue.
01:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, he just talks about the Angry Video Game Nerd for two hours but in the end he sort of brings it back to himself and his own relationship with the Angry Video Game Nerd and now it's led to a sort of self-reflection on his part. We should all do that. I mean it's not like his Nostalgia Critic video which was just talking shit about the dude for two hours.
01:08:17
Speaker
Anyway, Gil on the attention of seven months ah in tip jar. Thanks very much. And TSP gives $5. There's that nine souls boss talked about was the one boss so far that I hit a wall with as well. Finally got past it last night while I did that. Yeah, probably if if I got time, I might. So I think I really like Gordon as far as the third phase, like two or three times. So far, getting it out easy, getting through it in one go and then just putting the difficulty back up to where you wanted it. good i would know i I would know I'd done that. on off That's a funny thing because it's the same thing with puzzle games where people would sooner walk away from the whole thing, then look up for the solution for the one and keep going. Yeah. ah I feel like it's good. I mean, if I just like hammer away at it, I got to get to it eventually because I could basically do the first phase without losing any health at all. And presumably after enough time, I can do the same thing with the second phase. so Because you know, I've i've recognizing the patterns.
01:09:16
Speaker
All right. ah Fungus Finder gives $2. It says, hard can be fun. Frustration, not so much. I don't know, Fungus Finder, because as I was saying, part of the fun of the challenge in Dark Souls when I was into it was that you do get frustrated, but then you want to, that sort of makes you more motivated to a certain extent. And when you finally beat the boss, there's a tremendous feeling of relief, which is then undercut because that so because psych the boss has another health bar. Ha, ha, ha. And then you hate the game and want it to die.
Diverse Gamer Motivations
01:09:47
Speaker
But if you overcome that, the catharsis doubles. And this is how masochists think. There you go. Fox D gives high dollars says if a game with a story had a difficulty setting, I'll play the whole thing on baby's first video game without shame. Give me the story I paid for. Well, perhaps we're after different things, Fox D. If they have different reasons.
01:10:10
Speaker
If they have a little thing that says recommended by developer, that's the one. If it's the hardest difficulty, the easiest one, the one that says recommended by developer, that's the one I go for. I don't know. There's like, I read a textbook on video game design a while back, which mentioned that there are multiple different motivations of playing games. It kind of depends on what your personal preference is. Some people play games to 100% everything. Some people play games just to get through the story, to see the story end. Some people play games too as a a personal challenge. Yeah, i'm i I fully admit I'm very weird. I get no satisfaction out of
01:10:50
Speaker
like overcoming an obstacle in a game. I feel nothing. I feel no different from before I got to a boss than after I beat the boss. If that picks up a chick at the bar, i I'd be more convinced. Yeah. Esports maybe, you know? I get excited when I know stuff at pub trivia. So what is the i where does the appeal of playing games come from for you then? I like hanging out in a cool in a cool little digital world, wandering around, meeting weird little critters. sense of play yeah because his' sense of place
01:11:22
Speaker
That's the other one. Yeah. That's the other motivation. Alex Armstrong gives to Oh, shit. Oh, so am the but super chats just updated and everything scrolled down all of a sudden. So I had to scroll back up. Alex Armstrong gives $2 and says what about achievements via campaign difficulty? I have never given shit one about getting all the achievements that a game has. I know some people do. That's why I put achievements in my game, because I know it appeals to some people. ah But that's not my primary motivation.
01:11:57
Speaker
Thoughts? Oh yeah, I haven't cared about achievements um in probably 15 years. We have an episode where we talked about completionism. Like if it lends itself to that, I'm down for it. Like a lot of Metroidvanias, a lot of collectathons, you almost naturally get like to 95% and then you go a little further for that last 5%. I'm sure, Tineken was great stuff. If it's like, get all the feathers in Assassin's Creed, I don't care. I don't care about you. Not like that. Very Steven Spielberg, where he's like three takes and they and Matt Damon asked him, I could do that a little better. It's like, yeah, you could do that like five percent better or I could move on and just get a kickass shot. Yeah. So just mainlining the kickassness. I'm the enthusiast junkie. Michael Rich, seven to seven gives five dollars and says, not sure if this has been asked, but has difficulty led you to not finishing a game? For me, I didn't beat Returnal. I'll get back to it one day.
01:12:54
Speaker
I would argue that difficulty is the only reason one doesn't finish a game, Michael Rich 7-2-7. Either the game is too difficult to beat, or too difficult to give a shit about beating. Oh, this guy and his wording. dysphoria Yeah, it becomes difficult to care about, yeah. Yeah,
Tactics and Trends in Gaming Challenges
01:13:12
Speaker
plenty of games I've sort of been like, well, not for me. Yeah. Palash T gives for 99 and says the way I see with souls likes if it exists in the game, I'm using it. The game is pulling BS moves against me. Why can't I do the same to them?
01:13:26
Speaker
Exactly. Ring a bell and get all your rats in there. Me and my rat boys fighting a boss. Feels great. I say it does. It does feel weird. Having on again, there's a boss with a move that kind of reads your input and I'll go, ooh, ooh. It's fine. It's still, ooh. Yeah. Well, well, yeah. I mean, what chances I give you. I mean, unless you can read bear tales at the same pace. If I can faint it, I'm okay with it. I think some of them you can kind of set off with your own pattern moment. I feel like fainting is one of the big go-to tricks these like spaz out new fangled ultra hard elder ring bosses have. They always like hold the attack just long enough that you like to psych you out and make you press carry too early.
01:14:11
Speaker
If you can feint it, there there are some double standards, like ah how many bosses have these massive drumstick weapons that clip through walls, but mine, Maurice, cracks it immediately as soon as I touch the frickin' brick. You know? All's fair. It's just not equal. Alex Almschonk, aside on us, it says, thoughts on games that mock you for cheating or skipping hard bits, like postal games calling you sissy or splosion man forcing you to wear a tutu. Oh, very much of a time, right? Yeah. I think that's, that was certainly part of the identity of I want to be the guy. It was that if you chose to play on easy mode, your character will wear a little frilly red bow on their hair. But you know, that game was like self-identifying as an unfair game.
01:14:56
Speaker
yeah Yeah, it's all it is, isn't it? um Being proud of gamers not being able to get through your game is like a professor proud that students can't get through their course. No, it's like a right of proud that nobody predicted their plot twist because they made it impossible to predict. That's just being an asshole, frankly. Yeah. It feels like that's fallen out of vogue, right? of the ah Like Wolfenstein had the difficulty options and the one face had like the little pacifier. BJ Plaskovitz was ah sucking on or or Metal Gear Solid 5 had the chicken hat for easy mode.
01:15:37
Speaker
oh ah old hunter 77 goes five dollars and says souls likes getting to where open world was a couple of years ago more and more of it with diminishing returns me a fellow burnt out souls fan yeah and then when the souls like go open world where where does that leave you so if that if it's if it's head hitting the trend from a few years ago does that mean that the next trend is gonna be like a souls like extraction shooter that's what from sauce gonna make next Oh God, I think I've seen that actually. oh Um, there, if anything, they're going, uh, almost like souls, like ghost train rides, like Flintlock came through. So a lot is more dynamic. Like, uh, the movement seems to be where they're focusing on now. The new souls like makers where they do actually add more platforming because historically it's God souls games are horrible for the platforming. Indeed has been very big on traversal lately with your, uh,
01:16:33
Speaker
It's a radio knock-offs and you're grappling all your games with grappling hooks. Yeah. Uh, um, old Honda 77. Oh, just did that one. Tommy Salty gives 10 PLNs and says, hard mix, no true Scotsman and a boy tech the bear. Oh, shout out to boy tech. I hope boy tech's doing well. Good old boy tech. Yeah, that's a lot of that, isn't it? No true Souls player right right now. Yeah, you're not a real Elden Ring player if you summon help.
01:17:06
Speaker
a Blank, member for six months in the Green Gang. There's Yahtzee, any detective puzzlers too hard for you? No, I'm smart. It should be Lorelei eventually. No, that's not really a detective puzzler, that's just a puzzler puzzler. saying that, yes, that's what I was getting at. In the same way that people are going, it's difficult. It's a different kind of difficult. That is a type of puzzle that doesn't appeal to me. I wonder, I was playing the shit out of Crip Master last week, i really live which I really enjoy. And I wonder how hard other people will find it because all the challenges based around word puzzles and hangman.
01:17:42
Speaker
And that's something you immediately are very good at and you engage with a lot. I'm, I've got a very big vocabulary and I'm very good at, uh, the, uh, the Wordle. I know cause Wordle bot tells me so.
01:17:57
Speaker
yeah I think people are just wired in different ways. like i I got through Lorelei and the laser eyes relatively easily, but then something like Baba is you, I hit a point where I'm like, I don't. My brain doesn't have that wrinkle to like understand these sort of grammar problems you're asking me. Well, yeah. look i I was tearing down my own walls trying to solve some of animal well's puzzles, right but Lorelei going like, hey, flip to page five so you can see the Roman numerals. and like at that ta touch on um okay Kurt Holstein gives side dollars and says, speaking of variety and from software games, they should bring back Metal Wolf Chaos. Some of the dumbest stuff ever made into a game and God bless it. Yes, that's the game where you play as the president of the United States piloting a mech. Yes. and And the main villain is the vice president of the United States. Just imagine Joe Biden and Kamala Harris get going at it in giant robots against the background of fluttering American flags. Jesus. Look at that. That's great.
01:18:58
Speaker
ah Dr. Theo gives $5 and says, by the way, I made my first donors into three parties because $2 are 50 car, $5 are 150 car car, and $10 are only 200 car. The max is 500 for 350 car. All right. no Just hands up to us but justify yourself to her after the earth. Justify yourself to your God. That's the only one you need to explain. If I could give you a coupon, I would. Alex Armstrong is titled as it says there's also people who play games with new control schemes to increase challenge like that one dude who played Dark Souls in a guitar hero controller. Well, that dude was just mad. Is anyone watching Moon Moon's level one playthrough? It was like any any chatters watching this?
01:19:38
Speaker
Chad of a balded man going on a level one playthrough. I think he's maxed out his weapon, but yeah, no leveling into anything. It took him like 800 tries, I think to get through the, the dancing lion boss that go into that stream. Marty, you will have instant heart palpitations. Hey, if you content creators out there can come up with new ideas for challenge runs, new interesting ideas, the world will beat a path to your door. I like everyone's trying. I was watching a video last night of someone trying to beat Half-Life without standing up. Just crouch walking the way through the whole thing. it's the It's the hot thing with content these days. Challenge runs. but We should think of something.
01:20:26
Speaker
ah might even be thinking of something to put out in the relatively near future, but you didn't hear it from me, tap nose.
01:20:37
Speaker
ah My Volta Domar gives title and says, Miyazaki will always just make the games he wants to make. They didn't expect Elden Ring to sell so much and they don't expect future games to do so. That's what I like about him, honestly. No power to him. I feel like his best stuff is when he's just like, I want to make a something, a weird little weird game. Weird Italian accent there. I wasn't expecting that from Michael Zaki. I want I want to make an Eldritch. Do you
Balancing Difficulty with Enjoyment
01:21:05
Speaker
say Michael Zaki? Yeah, Michael Zaki. That's what Miyazaki is that mea zaki short for, Michael Zaki. Okay.
01:21:12
Speaker
It's like how Sega pretends to be a Japanese company, even though they were founded in Hawaii. There you go. Is that true? Yeah. Wow. Sonic's Hawaii? I mean, they're based in Japan now, but Sega is, Sega is short for service games, and they were founded in Hawaii. Amazing. Incredible. and i'm looked over everyone arguing So everyone over arguing over whether it should be Sega or Sega, they're all wrong. It should be Sega, because it's service games. Sega. Imagine. Gif and Yif. I'm looking forward to like, I think it was Miyazaki saying he wanted to make ah a proper yeah JRPG, but also just a co-op fantasy and he feels he hasn't made one yet proper. I'm like, yeah, let the man cook. He's the epitome of
01:21:59
Speaker
Line cook energy. Let them go. There you go. ah Magnum Wait gives side all this and says, I feel like another crab's treasure has a good idea. You can customize difficulty, but it can still offer challenge. And then you can just pull out your fucking gat. That's the best thing. That's catharsis right there. Kill an octopus. Yeah. I've, I was really beginning to Resident Evil 4, played a million times and then every now and again, I just go, I'm just going to play the whole game with the infinite rocket launcher just as a treat for me. You know, it's interesting too, because I played another crabs treasure until I kind of was like, I'm kind of done with the solsy part of it, turned on the gun, got through the rest of the game. Great. It was those big, giant crabs in the abyss that freaked me out. I was like, Oh, no, I powered, I powered through that. I beat the whole game with no help. dere Eventually concluded it's not that hard for that reason.
01:22:52
Speaker
and new i Uh, Phil Myassup gives 100 Norwegian Cronum and says, I feel souls like difficulty works best in waves. One brick wall followed by one soft blow. When it's two health bar suctioners in a row, it's just discouraging. One brick wall. What that made me think of was Resident Evil 4 again, because I feel like that game just goes from boss fight to boss fight to boss fight without a break, especially early on. Yeah. Like you do the El Gigante fire and then it's straight to the, to the, to the siege in the cabin. And it just feels like it's not letting up, but it's still one of my favorite games. Sure. Sure. I mean, you could argue that's what the open world nature of it is. Like just, you know, go have a walk. You build your own pace. Yeah.
01:23:38
Speaker
ah Pungusfinder gives $2 and says, ha, yeah, it's just oldies who can't use two sticks, sob. I'm using three stick controllers, so, you know my level. who I don't know where I'd put it, right in the middle, like an N64 controller. and we And control it with your penis, what? Sure. Sure. You said that we're looking for challenge runs. There you go. I'd be done running with my penis. Oh wait, did you guys see the beat it with their mind? They have like a, I saw some of that. Yeah. Mind control system. That got me worried. That's like Carrie using her mind to kill all those kids at the high school. I don't know. Cause I'm like, how hard is, can I just imagine victory? I'm owning, I'm owning, I'm owning. Just picturing skipping to the end credits like that one cheat code in the secret of monkey island. There you go.
01:24:30
Speaker
ah Dan and Mita gives five euros and says, millennia aside, Elden Ring was probably one of the easiest from games. I'll kiss off with this shit. <unk> Sorry. One of the easiest from games with all the options they gave to lower the difficulty, summon tiers, NPCs, et cetera. That second part, I will say I'm never going to rank the difficulty in the FromSoft games because I think that's that's kind of silly. I do think it ultimately had the most tools at the user's disposal. whether or not they counteracted some of the bullshitter in some of the bosses that Yahtzee was talking about. Your mileage may vary. Ryan Betts gives side dollars and says, shout out to Marty for perfectly describing a no true Salzman conundrum 25 minutes into the stream. Now we can finally close the book on that gag. I did it an hour ago? I don't remember that. You're a natural. We did it. Thank you, Michael.
01:25:26
Speaker
CrooksD gives $10 and says, I think the issue is the game is balanced around things like spirit ashes that the game expects you to use. So the bosses get extra mechanics and aggression, animation cancels, and delayed attacks. Is it though? Why OR? Bring your own rats. Is it is it though? I don't know. Fuck, I don't know the code. Or is that just something we say? I mean, when we talk about... Try to remember what Spirit Ash ended up using the most. I think I fell back on towards the end, ah the one where you just summon a copy of yourself. Yeah, commitment yeah um i mean I think when we were talking about how the bosses are extremely so kind of sporadic and and hyper aggressive, I think like
01:26:13
Speaker
you can very much equate. Oh, the game wants you to have a second person in there so that they can take Agra off you to give you a moment to breathe. And, you know, sure. But you can't use summons in like the jail guy. Yeah. And you can still find humans in the jail guy. You can summon humans in that fight. Yeah. Uh, Kofi Kowal gives so 99 and says donation for Yahtzee's brilliant national anthem recap for those who are interested in souls likes. I really enjoyed no rest for the wicked.
01:26:43
Speaker
and never got around star than that I know Nick was banging on about over a while. It's an early access. i'll get I'll give it a try once. it's like insiders That's why I didn't play it because it was an early access. Launch
Game Design Influence on Player Choices
01:26:55
Speaker
issues or something. ah Yeah. ah The style in DLRP gives $10 and says, what vigor should I have then? 60 doesn't seem to be enough, which makes you wonder what I should have. And yeah, the new game plus issue in general, input dropping issues isn't helping. Scadoo tree fragments. Get them scadoo tree fragments. It also depends on like, you know, you you need some good weaponry and whata what else else do you have? If anything, I think we should have opened up a helpline more so than steam reviews. Everything's going to be get those Scott who trees. Yeah. Cause it's like my baby's at 60. I'm still getting absolutely bone. Like brother, what are you wearing? You know, my, I'm either 29 and people were judging that for being super low.
01:27:36
Speaker
You're at level 260 and your vigor's at 29. Hey, look, I'm being judged you right now. What are you spending your money on? It's in, uh, it's in faith. It's in endurance. It's in strength. I have a lot in mind. I don't know what that does. I wanted to recap, but I didn't want to, um, was it go back on what old me was doing? Cause I trusted her. Yeah. He had some reason to do it. So I believe there was a method to your madness back then. Yeah. But I mean, I've not been. If they punish me for it, I'll grind out some vigor, but so far, I've been good. Men, Max, you scrub. I'm the kind of guy that just wants all the stats filled out. right This is my faith run, except for vigor. This is my faith build. This is my arcane. I want to care that by the end of it, he's got fire. He's shooting out lightning and probably some arcane spell from his... You're the true moderate tarnished. A Jack of all trades is a master of none.
01:28:32
Speaker
very Anyway, Dr. Theo comes back with $5. And says what is the difference between souls likes and Metroidvanias? They both feel very similar. And I want to figure out the differences besides difficulty. Well, for me, I think souls like refers more to surface level mechanics, like ah bonfire related stuff. And Metroidvania refers more to the way the world's laid out. And incidentally, I think Dark Souls is a Metroidvania. I think it's possible to be both. Yes, but I don't think Super Metroid or Castlevania Saint of the Night are a souls like. new although i admit the distinguish pollinator is out I mean the distinction is very sort of nuanced. I mean Castlevania has bonfires, simply the knight has bonfires, it has enemies to respawn every time you go through an area.
01:29:22
Speaker
you know I mean, where's the line? I mean, you just don't like have to pick up your experience out from a bloodstain after you die. that ah That is a major thing I consider in souls likes. Like that is a defining, you are not a soul like unless you do that in my opinion. Yeah, that's why I actually, instead of seeking out more Souls-likes, I started seeking out more Metroidvania games because it's it's the map. I enjoyed the traversal, the ability gaining more so than just like hard boss. You know, that's why I think my favorite of the Metroid brain is, you know, because it's even less frustrating and ups the challenge even more to your brain. Yeah, rest assured, I have no Metroidvania fatigue. I always love my love a nice Metroidvania.
01:30:06
Speaker
ah Coffee Koala is £9.99 and says, spot on with that, not that hard community analogy. I've recently died back into WoW and the Mythic Plus crowd are quick to be disparaging if you don't have every step of a 30 minute dungeon memorized. Yeah, and fucking Dota audiences as well. yeah Fucking MOBA players. We talked about that the, the, the, the upper 5% of people who've played a thing. I feel like they're, it's like the both sides opinions are almost like these are not useful for me. Like your opinion, if you've put 10,000 hours into something in your opinion, if you've put 10 minutes into something, like neither one is super helpful to me. Yeah. Cause after 10,000 hours sort of, uh, you sort of fallen victim to Stockholm syndrome at that point. Yeah.
01:30:51
Speaker
Uh, Danny one, two, three, four, five, one, comes back with five pounds and says, I didn't mean the game is not hard. I just read compared to the base game. It's around the same difficulty. If you give it to any un-neritable voices. That's not what Danny sounds like. Um, do it again, but this time with a voice of someone you respect. Gary Oldman. Michael michael Kane.
01:31:14
Speaker
You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off. I didn't mean the game's not odd. I just meant compared to the base game, it's around the same difficulty. See? That's good there. Yeah. ah Compared to the base game, yeah, that's that's what I was feeling, too. Expectations, it's pretty on par. It's pretty even. If anything, I feel the map is a little less, but as everyone has been saying, wait wait till you see it. It's more vertical. And you know me, I hate gravity, so we'll see. i There's one thing I know about you, you hate gravity. Fucking gravity. Where does it get off? mean ah Dr. Theo gives our dollars says, would custom levels count for the game's difficulty? That's why I brought up geometry dashes. The custom levels are stupidly hard and part of the game's ID. Well, if the stupidly hard games in Super Mario Maker count, then sure. Yeah.
01:32:07
Speaker
Whatever's going to happen. I think if you give people custom levels, someone's going to be doing that. Someone's going to be making obnoxiously hard levels, because what else can you do? To stand out.
01:32:23
Speaker
Permafrosty79, member for two months in tip jar. Thank you very much. FoxD gives $5. There's a difference between playing a story game on Stupid Easy and playing a sports or simulation or strategy game where I'll challenge myself. Wow, that explains, gives us some insight in what sort of gameplay you're into, Fox Day, subjectively. Yeah, everyone
Personal Satisfaction and Creative Strategies
01:32:45
Speaker
has their own mile markers. Yeah, you can almost say I play for it to get easy. I remember NFL street two, I didn't apply good stats on everyone. I just made one big thick boy and I just have him run a reverse fake every time. This is my bad thing, but I got to see the story. I got to go against exhibit in the end. You know, it's great.
01:33:07
Speaker
Yeah, we know you you like your pick boys. You got to see exhibit in the end? Yeah, he's a I guess he's a boss. so ah John Connor gives five Canadian and says, I felt Elden Ring bosses have been bullshit before, but getting over that and beating them is quintessential to the sense of accomplishment.
01:33:32
Speaker
I suppose. I don't know. I think what we have to learn to accept is that frustrations aren't universal and also a sensitive achievement are not universal. When have we proved ourselves enough? When I picture a fucking link from Zelda asking that question after the 15th dungeon run by the ancients. but um Do you want this motherfucker dead or what? How many times are you going to make me prove this shit? it's It's on you to be Kenneth, you know? It's on you. The hot fish gives $4.99 and says, as a game design student, this is fascinating. Is the DLC hard because the bosses are actually too hard or because of content density and pacing? Well, you have to ask someone who played it.
01:34:26
Speaker
And that's a little bit of both. um And again, I think some of the difficulty might stem from the ignoring some of those new mechanics and systems that you I really highly suggest you do not ignore. If you want, you're going to get a little get a little bit easier.
01:34:48
Speaker
and The end. Qster gives $10 and says, has there been a souls like boss that made you feel bad for making it too easy? For example, used the Spectre on the Archbishop in Lies of P, which trivialized the fight and sucked out the satisfaction. Every once in a while, you'll get to a boss that just kind of glitches out and you are able to cheese your way through it. I never feel bad. This one's for me. There'll be 21s that are playing the S. That happened with me with the final boss of Sultan Sanctuaries, Aragul. I got glitched into a wall, and my weapon was long enough that I could hit him, but he couldn't hit me. I was like, you know what? I'll fucking take it.
01:35:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. i mean It's your, it's your dodgy code that made this happen game. Yeah. said like Yeah. That's how I take it. Like if you didn't want me to use this stuff, you could easily just lock me in a nice circular room with a boss. No tools, no nothing. That's what you're about. So Uh, too easy, but I also understand because who was it? Uh, what's that one boss in Dark Souls one where you can just run away and they'll grab the cliff and then you spank their hand and they fall. The ceaseless discharge. Yeah. yeah Like if, but that was, that was really fun. Uh, but if every boss was like that, that probably wouldn't be a fun experience overall. well trick is I think the point with that is that the ceaseless discharge, if you go into the law is a character you're supposed to feel sorry for. You're supposed to feel sorry for like everyone.
01:36:14
Speaker
Yeah, him in particular, though, and then you can just cheese him and that just sort of makes you go, Oh, my God, you were so pathetic. So he's discharged. Yeah, you even show up for work today. You poor sad. checkk He's like, he's like It's like the Eeyore of all the bosses in Dark Souls. Oh, now I feel bad for killing him. yeah Why'd you put him down then? He sees us, he's not gonna stop. It's fair.
Souls-like Games for Newcomers
01:36:38
Speaker
my my My joy comes from actually knowing that these bosses do give people a lot of problems and I'll cheese it or trivialize it in some way.
01:36:48
Speaker
so it's It's a different perspective, like Liza P, near the end, some of those bosses, God, they put up crazy fights and I couldn't do it with the sword I had. So I finally just grabbed the biggest, it's this weird axe that's like hands, big handy weapon thing. And I just maxed that thing out and it was just staggered, staggered over and over, nothing could sit to it. And I was like, oh, this is great. No. ah Fungus Finding is $5. It says, Cryptmaster has some extra puzzles that don't matter for the ending, but are still insanely hard. What does that take away from the game? Nothing. Okay. No one's arguing with you there, Fungus Finder. We're not talking about, like, optional challenges here. If if you, yeah, you know, if it's not spicy enough for you and they provide nipple clamps, you want to put them on? Go for it. There you go. Nipple clamps in this society.
01:37:41
Speaker
late Lady Luminous, member for four months in ad-free podcasts, there's, what is the easy souls like? Krabs treasure, Hollow Knight, is there such a thing as an easy souls like? Hollow Knight is definitely not the easy, whatever whatever what it is, Hollow Knight is not the answer. No, no, no. I'd say right now, Krabs treasure. Yeah, that's probably a good gateway. So I was like, although if you're into like souls like, as I said, going back to Demon's Souls can feel Uh, like they go pretty easy on you. Yeah. Everyone seems a little bit slower in demon souls. Yeah. Also, they hadn't yet figured out to counter bait the attack, dodged behind them, stabbed them in the bum.
01:38:26
Speaker
Uh, Liam Omega gives $2 and says, has the Okamura fight in persona five? I fucking hate that. I hate that. Not worth fighting for. We fighting but it almost got through a whole podcast without Marley talking about persona there, Liam Omega. Well, you asked him about persona gold earlier. ah yeah so brought all right that's all right you monsters that we then we've talked about We've talked about this boss fight before about how the fight is literally easier on a harder difficulty than it is on an easier difficulty because of the damage you can ah deal and it's like a trick but it's like a puzzle fight that it's a real pain in the ass puzzle and just a real shit boss and i'm I'm happy that that man is dead. I'm sad that his daughter is now an orphan but I'm happy he's dead.
01:39:12
Speaker
Holy shit, Nur ad-Din just gifted 50 memberships in the chat. Ooh, look at that. All the greens, welcome. Some of you, I know you saw the title, this is your first time here. Welcome, enjoy. You don't deserve those. We love you too. You don't
Community Dynamics and Game Origins
01:39:27
Speaker
deserve those. They belong in a museum. No, you don't deserve us, but we do these podcasts anyway. Look grateful.
01:39:38
Speaker
Uh, the keeper of chaos gives $2 and says hardest from soft boss is your nada from assassins. Sorry. Armoured core. Last Raven. Oh, sorry. He's kind of sorry. I'm crossing. Sorry. Sorry. No, no, no, no. <unk> etc Yeah, I feel like Ubisoft's actual hardest games are the ones that people don't talk about, like the ones that aren't the Demon's Souls, Dark Souls trilogy, Bloodborne, Sekiro, Armored Core, Elden Ring. But the hardest games are they're like real jankfest, your King's Fields, your Echo Knights, your Adventures of Cookies and Cream, because you got to use both sticks at the same time.
01:40:16
Speaker
It's two different characters. Most games you have to use both sticks at the same time. Was that before Brothers A Tale Of Two Sons? It was. It was a first year PS2 game. I believe it came out in 2000 or 2001. Man, I thought Brothers A Tale Of Two Sons was original. Nah, this one you got two bunnies. One's called Cookies, one's called Cream. Just opposite sides of the screen. What a game. Isn't there a bunny called Cream in the Sonic canon as well? There are, yeah. Cream is mean actually Japanese for bunny. Oh, originated in Hawaii. No, I made, I made that up. That's why I knew you were lying. It wasn't supposed to be a truthful lie. We were all supposed to know I was lying. The difficulty of this lie was too much for me. Someone figure out the logical through line from cream to lagomorphs. A lagomorph. Fuck is that mean? That's
Closing Remarks and Future Content
01:41:09
Speaker
the genus of animals that rabbits fall into. Oh, I know. That's how cute.
01:41:16
Speaker
Anyway, Zulro gives five euros and says, for me, the biggest difficulty in Elden Ring are big bosses with AOE's and camera issues where the camera clips inside them and I can't follow what I'm doing. It's a lot better than it used to be, I'll tell you what, but yeah. Yeah, there's some bosses in Dark Souls where deactivating the camera lock-on actually helps. like I think the Iron Giant is easier with the lock-on turned off. Yeah. Iron Golem, I should say. Iron Giant's the other thing. the hit film. Yeah. geel ah And also from the hit game multiverses. Oh no. Uh, you heard me. So, uh, Danny one, two, three, four, five, one gives, comes back with five pounds and says, Yachty, how did you know? I sound like that. Are you following me? Ruby, the solids of a pomegranate.
01:42:09
Speaker
we're Really bad Michael game. It's not good. So good. uh, blooming deez nuts gives $2 and says persona five brought up by yards. As they say, no true Scotsman. That's not a true Scotsman. What are you doing? Make yourself look like a fool here. Not knowing those classic fallacies. It it took you like five podcasts. Blue gets four more. I still don't. Someone said I got one earlier. I do not remember that. oh like I don't think I did. But you did one with intent and you got it through.
01:42:43
Speaker
with zero confidence whatsoever. And finally, ah the final super chat, Conte gives two euros to say, I've got balls of steel. it like duke film a little paul mccarty there and yeah um I was trying to do my Duke voice, but it sort of bottomed out on me. Hang on. little pop ah I've got balls of steel. Now I've lost it on Saint John. What a man. ah John, couple balls of steel. Don't have time to play with myself. Oh, no. When I see you, you're worried. There we go. That's all super chats and I'm really hungry and want my lunch. So I guess we'll wrap things up. Thanks for listening to the Woodbreakers podcast and thanks for not being twice in the comments under the VOD as I know you won't be.
01:43:40
Speaker
Wondering how many people now feel guilty. I've said that. Uh, I was, yeah, it's crucial. I was joined by Frost and Marty as usual and adorable, adorable toffee resting on my arm. I thought you could say adorable, adorable Eric. Well, he's adorable too. Adorable, adorable Eric producing from the background as always. Uh, remember, uh, we've got lovely second wind content coming every day this week, as always. I've got my fully ramblimatic coming out on Wednesday. This will be a roundup of Summer Game Fest announcements and trailers in as a sort of spiritual successor to my E3 roundups. Because it happened around the same time as E3 usually did, so fuck it. No,
01:44:28
Speaker
new because onendo I wanted to keep it to ah killing hype. And a slitter head is actually something I feel like might be good. Question. You you like to offset the hype because you can't have too much of a good thing. If everyone suddenly becomes cynical, will you be the one that brings the hype? When everyone's cynical, no one will be. Exactly. So you'll have to be the happy one then? No, I'm going to make everyone cynical so that I can feel like I can finally make friends as an adult.
01:45:05
Speaker
A book club or something, you know? A very cynical book club. Yeah. Well, they just read mind, conf, and check their head. So everyone walking by knows they disagree.
01:45:21
Speaker
Oh, oh, oh. That's what we do the whole time. my god
01:45:28
Speaker
Uh, uh, yes, so that's fully my writing. Don't forget, Yahtzee tries on Wednesday, as always, my weekly stream of whatever game I feel like streaming. And, uh, I don't have a seminar on automatic this week, so that'll be it from me, and except for my appearance in Adventure is Nigh on Saturday, as usual. What else we got coming up this week? ah Stream-wise, I'll be back with Casey in just a little over an hour ah for a ah sponsored stream of Voidrot. Speaking of 2D action platformers that have a Souls-like ah twist to them. That was a game we tried to stream last week, but YouTube was down right when we went to stream.
01:46:09
Speaker
So we'll be making good on that in an hour. And then the Hinn Gems crew will be back later tonight, normal time. And all the, yeah, all the normal pods and everything. And Jack and I will be back later on in the week with Elden Ring as well. ah That might be Thursday, might be Friday. We're still figuring that out, but we will let everyone know.
01:46:26
Speaker
and okay ah froing in you want to plug I've got a new cold take that just came out, nice and fresh. Go watch that. Talking about the hottest game to hit Steam, Banana. Imagine. Go watch that. Banana. Yeah. ah Is it hotter than, uh, is it the hottest banana centric game since my friend Pedro? Oh, that's a good one. I mean, it's like number one, one number two on Steam charts right now. It's the biggest banana game since Donkey Kong Country 64.
01:46:59
Speaker
I'm trying to think of other banana games. I say that for battle masters. Did they ever make like a doll or a Chiquita, like branded Super Nintendo platformer? Jesus, man. Well, what? They're bringing freedom to South, South America. trees
01:47:18
Speaker
Don't take that idea. That's ours. We're making that game now. Anyway, PS Marsh ah sent in one final super chat for $2 saying when everyone is cynical, Yahtzee can retire. That's when the real work starts, B.S. Marsh. that's when we That's when I start running for president. Imagine. Not in this country. It won't burn here. Well, everyone will be so cynical. They'll let anyone become president. of says ah shouldve been well they can't Well, they can't make things much fucking worse, they will say. Great time.
01:47:54
Speaker
All right, that'll be it from us. See you next time everyone. Bye everyone.