GameTrailers.com posted a video list that names the ten hardest games of all time (so far). Does anything look familiar to you? Maybe selection number seven is responsible for that fist-sized dent in your wall? Perhaps #3 is represented in your mind by a controller dashed against the floor?
Not surprisingly, the comments section for the video is filled with insightful discussion, including "WHAT? Devil May Cry 3 was easy! ur just a pussy faggot!" and "u shuld get cancer & die."
The revival of old franchises has also rekindled a lot of talk about truly challenging games versus unfair games. Bionic Commando, for example, is a tough journey because you have to re-think everything you thought you knew about game physics. You unconsciously hit a jump button that's not there; you have to scale up, not out. Suddenly, a simple obsticle with an enemy soldier lying in wait behind it becomes a small puzzle because you cannot initiate a death from above. Not in the traditional goomba-stompin' manner paved by Mario.
My pick for hardest game doesn't make GameTrailer's list, but it will burn on in my heart like a cinder: Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter. Capcom's fifth installment in its famous RPG franchise about swords and dragons was anything but traditional. Dragon Quarter takes place in a congested underground world that's as hostile as a baboon pen during mating season. Everything is out to kill the main character, Ryu--including the less-than-benevolent dragon spirit that posesses him.
In Dragon Quarter, you are expected to die. It's the only way you learn how to fight and in fact, dying is the only way to see the entire story. It's not exactly hard to perish, given that enemies fight strategtically and force you to do the same in every single battle. But the system is so beautifully thought out and so balanced that if you die, you have nobody to blame but yourself and your rashness.
It's probably why I appreciate Dragon Quarter as one of the greatest RPGs in console history but can't bring myself to finish it. I admit I'm not a heavy thinker or wizard problem solver, especially when I'm playing video games. I play games to relax. I'm not much for strategy, especially not real-time strategy, which makes me break out into a sweat.
Unfortunately, idiots like me are killing the RPG genre. Dragon Quarter sold very poorly thanks to its radical design, dooming RPGs to a thousand years of swords, menu commands and destined orphans with burnt hometowns.
I'm really sorry I'm such a wuss when it comes to genuinely challenging games.
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