So, I’ve been playing through Bayonetta recently and it’s a great game. It’s also a challenging game. Not the hardest I’ve ever played and certainly always the right side of fair, but a challenge all the same. That got me thinking – what’s been the hardest game of this generation thus far? While Ninja Gaiden 2 and Demon’s Souls are the obvious shouts, I’d argue the case for Halo 3 on Legendary being one of the tougher nuts to crack (when played solo at least) and, let’s be honest, COD: World at War on Veteran is a complete pain in the ass (how the hell can the Japanese afford so many grenades?)
The thing is, I’ve played all of the above and I don’t think any of them compare to some of the content that can be found on PSN or XBLA – Ikaruga? That game is harder than any of the above. Fact. The premise and mechanics may be simple but Ikuruga is as pure a test of skill and perseverance as you are likely to find. Then there’s Alien Hominid. It may look inviting but the cutesy graphics and adorable character design hide, what is in fact, one of the hardest side-scrollers in recent memory. That’s not to mention Mega Man 9 and Hard Corps: Uprising which, like all of the above, fall comfortably into the teeth gnashingly, controller breakingly, hair pullingly difficult category (it’s a real category – look it up).
In case you hadn’t noticed – one thing that all of the above have in common is their decidedly old school design. Although updated with flashy graphics (well, maybe not Mega Man) and a few fancy tweaks, each of the above are essentially updated versions of the kind of games we all used to play back in the 80’s and early 90’s. The fact is – we’ve all gone soft.
Developers want us to see every bit of the games they have created and God forbid they should scare off the potential casual crowd. Easy Mode…..Very Easy Mode, lengthy tutorials and hand holding are all a huge part of modern gaming. Games like Bayonetta and Ninja Gaiden are the exception but even these can’t compare to the fiendish difficulty found in so many classic videogames from the 8 and 16 bit eras. Believe me, if you think Demon’s Souls is hard, go and spend a bit of time with Ghouls ‘n Ghosts for a real challenge.
I appreciate that developers want their expensive, beautifully realised game worlds to be seen in their entirety but does that mean ever increasing budgets will inevitably equate to ever decreasing difficulty? I really hope not. Still, even if they do, the downloadable services look like they’ll be delivering the hardcore for a long time to come…..and God bless ‘em for it.
Uhhhhh, so, to wrap up – the hardest game of this generation? Probably Ikaruga (and yes, I do appreciate that it was originally released on the Dreamcast).
What do you think?
Ahhhh yes the 80′s those were the days. I agree games were much harder back then, probably because the developers needed to make them hard as generally the levels were much shorter. If the level of difficulty was changed to easy on them you would finish them in 5 minutes. In those days however i certainly found that you felt much more inclined to beat the game and finish it.Maybe that was because it was the only game you had as your parents only bought you one on special occasions; so you played all your games to death. It was much more about gameplay than graphics in those days. Probably because you don’t have huge publishers that only care about the numbers. If you look at Indi games nowadays as you say on PSN and XBLA they are written by small teams with no pressure from above so you can get some wicked games again
“now where is my Spectrum Z80 again?”
Yeah, getting a new game back in the day was a massive deal and I’d play them over and over as I simply didn’t have anything new to play…..guess I was just glad that they loaded up. Nothing worse than waiting 20 minutes to play Turrican on the C64, only for the mo fo to go and crash on you! Burn!
ikaruga is tough, but i’d like to put rockman/megaman as a contender. the prinny games tried to follow in its lead, but i still think rockman takes the cake.
oh, and some indie games are similar, like VVVVVVV.
Rockman / Megaman is absolute nails and easily in the same league as Ikaruga. Isn’t their one especially impossible Achievement for Megaman 9?
Personally, I feel the need to throw in the R-Type series. Frankly I’m mostly a RTS guy, and the newer games are a joke.
In my humble opinion, we need more games with the “mythic difficulty” (Term for Halo, on Legendary difficulty, with all skulls on, which makes almost every enemy a nearly invincible force of nature, taking two clips at point blanks range to kill stuff.)
Sure, there is easy, but Halo had it again. “This game basicly plays itself”. A friend of mine and I have been trying to coop halo reach (mythic), and it’s HARDER THAN HELL.
Indie games can still be hard as nails…Super Meat Boy, anyone?
I struggle with legendary let along Mythic when playing Halo (find the game loses its charm on the hardest difficulty though as it essentially makes Master Chief a bit of a pussy)……..and as For Super Meat Boy? How the hell did I forget that? That game is most certainly nails.