Hard Games: When Frustration Takes Over Fun

I have a history with temper tantrums when it comes to video games.  Sometimes I throw controllers, and I've thrown and broken a DS and a Vita before.  It's been over a year since I've thrown something.  The last being the Vita.  Today, Dark Souls caused me to break my PS3 controller.  It's not funny.  It really isn't.

It's not that the game's hard that's the problem.  It's the way Dark Souls is designed.  They don't put shortcuts directly to the boss room, and they don't let you retry things.  You have to start over wherever your last checkpoint was.  This is something that From Software is known for, making ridiculously hard games.  But, it doesn't need to always be that way.

I was fighting The Four Kings, the boss of New Londo Ruins, and the path to get to them even after you've opened a "shortcut", Attempting to kill everything up to the boss room is not only a waste of time, but a risk as well.  I have to run past five dragons and about 10 Darkwraiths (mean nasty knights), and a ghost that can go through the fog gate leading to the boss room, which they aren't supposed to do.  I run past everything because I don't want to fight everything.  Yet, even trying to run past everything, I can still get hit and killed.  An enemy decides to do a different attack and I somehow roll into it, or a dragon's wing pushes me in front of the other's lightning breath.

I JUST want to keep trying the boss over and over again.  I'm the type of person who learns through repetition, but it's really distracting to me when I have to keep running through crap to get back to the boss fight.  Some times nothing posses a threat at all.  When I was struggling with the boss of Anor Londo, I had at least a two minute run of nothing until I got to enemies to start dodging before the fog gate.

Now, I understand people like this kind of difficulty, and that's fine.  I don't want From Software to start making the base difficulty easier but what I want is an option for an easy mode, or at least a save anywhere option, or a boss retry, something to take the tediousness of having to return to the boss room over and over and over again.  "Well, you should get better!"  That's not the point!  The point is, I shouldn't have to waste so much time to come back to a boss when I have to attempt it over and over again.

It's silly when you think about it.  Video games are the only entertainment medium that cannot be enjoyed due to lack of skill.  You pay a lot of money for these things, and if for whatever reason you can't pass it, then you've just wasted money.  I know I can beat this boss; I know I can beat the game.  I just didn't want to keep running through the same damn enemies over and over again.  I lost it.  Rest in peace, PS3 controller.

New 3DS games!

So, as I said in my previous blog, I was planning on getting this game:

So, I did.  I went to Best Buy today to pick up a couple of Blu-Rays and went to their video game section to look for it, but didn't find it.  My local Best Buy is notorious for not putting out new product on shelves in a timely manner, so I had to ask for it.  Anyway, while I was browsing for it, I also found this!

Sorry for the small pic.  Had a really hard time finding a picture of the box art for some reason.  Anyway, this proves to me how far out of the loop I've been in Video Game World when I had NO IDEA this game was already out!  This has been one of my most anticipated games in a long time.  Ever since I first heard they were making this in Japan, I begged and pleaded and prayed for a release stateside.  I got really excited when I heard they making the translation for it in English, but then... too much FFXIV.  It completely slipped under my radar.  Well... screw that!  This isn't happening again.  I'm paying attention to the games I'm interested in getting from this point forward!

Only question now is... which one do I start first?  Hmm...

Quit FFXIV ... again

So it appears that I've quit Final Fantasy XIV again.  What caused me to start it up again?  I made the mistake of trying it out on the PS4.  Before I knew it, I was sucked in, investing far more of my time on average than I was when I first started last year.  To whom do I own the thanks of quitting a second time?  Why, Square-Enix themselves.

Thank you, Square-Enix, for poorly designing the new crafting content to take hours upon hours upon hours to finish.  So much work is needed to just to get one tool, so much time needed to gather the shards and materials to make the trade-in items for spectacles to break down... and get absolutely nothing for my effort.  Thank you, Square-Enix, for making wasting my time waiting for stupid FATEs that NO ONE enjoys waiting for.  Thank you for never bothering to address this outspoken problem, and thank you for thinking that you have to keep dragging out every bit of new content by requiring ridiculous amounts of time to do... ANYTHING.

See, I quit FFXI because it was a major time sink, although I started it up six more times and it took me quitting six more times before I was finally done with the game for good.  When I first started FFXIV, the game's pacing was fantastic.  I could do most content by myself, and I got my first job to 50 (level cap) in about a couple of months.  I figured this was the way it should be, but things chanced when I entered the world of end-game.  Grind for this currency to buy that gear.  Grind for that currency to buy this gear.  Grind. Grind. Grind.  It caused me to quit FFXIV back in January, and it caused me to quit again now.

I haven't deleted my character, though.  Not like last time.  Last time, I deleted it and when I tried out the PS4 beta in April, I made the decision to see if I could recover my character.  I could, so I did, and started it up again.  I really wish I couldn't recover my character, though, because there would have been no way I was going to go through all that work again.  Little did I know I just set myself up for a whole new set of work.

I kept my character for two reasons.  One, when the next expansion is introduced, the job Ninja will be introduced, and I really would like to try that out.  Yet, it would be extremely foolish to start it up again, as I might get addicted a third time.  I really should just flatout delete the character, but, I did some research in selling accounts, and accounts comparable to mine can net close to a thousand bucks.  If I could sell my character for that much, it would help ease the sting out of me having wasted so much of my gaming life.  I should have done that the first time, though.

I want to keep my plate open for new games.  My next purchase will be this:

Yes, it's another Final Fantasy game, but it's not an MMORPG.  I won't be tied to some subscription that forces me to play it every day.  I can play it every day out of just wanting to genuinely play it because it's fun.  Plus, I loved the first Theatrhythm.  It's a great rhythm based game, and if you love these kinds of games, and have a 3DS, I recommend getting it.  

So, here's to being free of FFXIV... again!

Let the Madness Begin!

Dark Souls.  A game most gamers beat back in 2011.  A game some gamers never were able to finish.  Well, three years later, I'm finally starting the spiritual successor to one of the hardest games I've played in years, Demon's Souls.  I've spent about five hours so far, and I haven't gotten far in at all. 

I actually just beat a very tough enemy, which is why I'm taking a break to write this blog.  If you never played Dark Souls, it feels very much like Demon's Souls, and if you never played Demon's Souls, imagine going to the bank with your money in a bag, someone comes along and kills you, but your bag of money stays there in the spot you died.  You're resurrected and given ONE shot to traverse an area full of killers to claim your money, but you die on the way there, you lose it all.  This is Dark Souls, and it's un-fucking-forgiving. 

The enemy I just beat is an enemy I've spent three nights working on, and it's quite silly that I'm even fighting him.  He's far, far stronger than I am, so strong in fact that he can kill me in one swift blow.  He's a knight, with a menacing set of bulky armor and a massive shield that could plow through five foot snow drifts.  And a really nasty looking curved club.  He attacks far quicker than that club should allow, and I've died  to him over and over and over again.  Yet, I just keep coming back.  To die again, and again and again.  Why am I doing this to myself?  Because of the challenge.  

The challenge is addictive.  Sometimes you're presented with something that seems impossible, but after trying again, you get a moment's glint of hope that there's a way.  I was extremely off put by Demon's Souls when I first started, but once I got a feel for the game, I was hooked.  Even after I'd amassed 30-40 thousand souls and lose them all, I'd do it all over again.  After finally vanquishing that stupid knight in Dark Souls, I'm once again eager to venture forth and see what other horrendous challenges the game has for me.  

Did I mention that you can be invaded by other people in the game?  Yep.  Let me explain a bit.  Your character has two forms.  Living, and dead, which is called Hallowed.  When you're living, you're stronger.  You have more HP, resistance, etc.  You'll pretty much always want to stay human if you can, because it makes fighting easier.  However, in this phase, you're also prone to be invaded by other players, and sometimes they're geared to the teeth which means you'll be missing yours soon enough.  For the most part, I just stay in Hallowed, because I have enough trouble not getting myself killed to have someone else try to kill me.  

It does feel nice to finally get to this game after three years have passed, but it's also intimidating at the same time.  The way the game forces you to take it slow, study and react to enemy attacks; I need to bring out my old-school gaming skills that have been hibernating.  I wonder how many controllers I'm going to go through, though...