Beating every single boss fight without dying once throughout the entire boss rush run. You only have one life in that game, but I made a rule that makes you restart all of the bosses when you take a hit, so that was very cool.
Pantheon 5 of HollowKnight. 1 mask left, battling Abs Rad, with the 4th stage activating, I depressingly dragged myself up the “staircase”, thinking it would be yet another death. And yet somehow I pulled through in the end. That moment when I landed that last strike and the shade lord was summoned was the closest moment in my life I have ever legitimately felt like I could’ve had a heart attack.
@@Pogobro It's a relatively unknown game, it's called "Nameless Cat" and it's pretty fun. There's only four bosses but they're quite difficult to get through with only one health so I'd say that it's quite the challenge. It's also a puzzle game, so when you're not fighting the bosses on 1 HP, you're dealing with the puzzles on 1 HP, although you've got checkpoints through the levels, not the boss fights though.
It might sound wierd, but one of my favourite examples of "rewarding skilled players" is Super Mario Odyssey. Now, mario odyssey is by no means a hard game, you can be awful at video games and still get through. But the thing about odyssey is how much faster you can get through if you are skilled. Almost all bosses in Odyssey have something called "speed strats", which is harder way you defeat the boss, but takes way less time. Some of these "speed strats" can be extremely hard to get consistently and have ended many speedruns. Odysseys incredible movement system also has a very high skill ceiling, giving you the ability to skip some areas by making a hard jump. The game is practically desinged with speedrunning in mind, while still being very accessible by less experienced players.
Odyssey even has an assist mode which shows you the path to the next story moon, doubles your base health, allows you to sit still to restore that health, gives you infinite air underwater, and prevent you from falling off the stage/into lava by placing you back on solid ground and taking one HP. It’s also the first mainline Mario game to not have a lives system, instead having Mario drop 10 coins that can even be recovered provided they fall on safe ground
As someone that has been playing videogames for a long time and is a hardcore player of character-action games I can say for sure that right now ULTRAKILL is my favourite game. It's easy to pick, gives choice on the difficulty, has complex mechanics, extremely fun gameplay and rewards player expression and skills. I haven't seen many character-action games well made in the first place and I've never seen an integration done so well of another genre into an FPS. Let's hope that this will push character-action games and the likes to the next level, because as a genre series like DMC or Bayonetta are quite niche and don't get a lot of content on the long run, so the more the merrier :)
Complex mechanics is right, I had no idea you could shoot the coin with the other revolver's lazer until I read about it in the weapon description, letalone punching the coin...
@@theanomaloushendo4516 Wait until you find out about chargebacks. I don't think it's stated anywhere in game so I'll spoil it here, don't read below the line if you don't want the secrets spilled ------------------- A chargeback is when you take a coin and hit it with a laser. Now, I know what you're thinking, that's just an ultraricoshot. But you see, a chargeback is more than just an ultraricoshot, because you do it with someone else's laser. Whether it's Maurice (Malicious face), one of the sentries introduced in Act II, or a similar laser, if you can make them hit your coin, it's a chargeback. Honestly one of the most fun mechanics. Learning about chargebacks, slam storage, and projectile boost instakills on the Mindflayers really sells the game for me, which is insane because my favorite thing I've found to do is ignore all the fun weapon tech and start P ranking everything with no weapons equipped. I've beaten V2 to death with my bare hands and did it with enough style to P rank the level twice over. It's such a rush. But the game's just deep, and that lets you swim in the pool your own way.
I personally like Skill Based video games, as beating that one boss you were stuck on is just so satisfying. Although my personal preference is Strategic Video Games. Video Games where you need to think two steps ahead and calculate everything, with some of my favourites being: "Pokémon Platinum", "Pokémon Ruby" and Pokémon Nuzlockes in general. Although it's obviously not something that everyone likes.
That's the reason I love playing those types of games whenever I do. Slowly going from Inkwell Isle 3 in Cuphead being a struggle for me to beat to now beating it twice as fast as I did back in 2017 is a very rewarding feeling within itself. Inkwell Isle 4 really helped improve my skills though lol
@@antonioudovicic4899 you obviously don't know what you're talking about. What exactly is pokemon then? Do you know what a nuzlocke is? Define strategy. You can have many different forms of strategy. Even in games that aren't "strategy" games. Pokemon is more strategy game than others. ESPECIALLY if you put self imposed rules. Try again.
One part of the whole master round gungeon-thing is that it allows you to unlock elevators to skip the floor, only if you perfect it. The ladder part is literally literal, not skill wise, but as "i'm skipping this easy boss so i can get to the boss i struggle, sooner". It does kinda make it harder as you only get 1 gun for skipping a floor, while if you do that entire floor, you can get all of the rewards that might help with the next one. It's a very Risk (dying because you have a shitty gun that a rat gave you) vs Reward (because it's spared you about 5 minutes)
@@37erss no seriously it's more fun than elevators, because the weapon you get as skipping a floor compensation is significantly worse than if you just went and did the floor, so you can play with more funny guns and stuff
Dead Cells and Hollow Knight are my hard games of choice. In Dead Cells, I have a currently perfect challenge portal record. In Hollow Knight, I've managed to beat the game, but I'm gearing up for The Pantheon of Hallownest.
I really love Furi's method of rewarding the player, it is very very simple but the higher rank you get on a fight the more a piece of concept art is revealed to you relating to that boss fight. Also the special method at the end of beating the game on hard mode is fantastic
I beat hollow knight with nearly 60 percent game completion out of pure spite. I told my friend I did not like the game play in general and was accused of not playing it right and being told I'm probably just not good at it. So I beat the whole thing (which let me say the only real problem I had was fighting the watcher knights) and a bunch of not required things just cause. I can still say it's only alright not my kinda game.
It's good if you enjoy those types of games, it's honestly one of my favorite games since I enjoy the challenge and not being able to beat pure vessel for a week
@@h_oom4114 thank you. I even love Metroidvanias, but Hollow Knight brings absolutely nothing new to the table. I can see why people would like it if it was one of their first few forays in the genre, but it's really just mediocre. Not bad, not great. Just right in the middle.
The problem with 'skill issue' and 'git gud' and other statements like it, is that there's a difference between bragging about being better than someone and saying, 'you're not making any glaring mistakes, you just need to learn how to more efficiently do what you're already trying to do.' Souls-likes are a great example
It depends on how the person responds , if the person that is struggling isn't complaining that it's the games' problem but their own , people will usually be willing to give advice and be encouraging . However if the person is saying this game sucks its too hard then people are far more likely going to make fun of them . That game journalist that played Cuphead deserved to get clowned on , how can somebody with supposedly 20 years of gaming experience play like its the first time they held a controller in their life , the dude spent like 10 minutes on the tutorial and couldn't beat the first level after like 30+ minutes of attempts , if people like those review video games how is anybody suppose to take video game journalists seriously , they are already a big joke as it is .
@@saula8948 I'm sorry, but I disagree with your take on the Cuphead journalist. If you take a look at the description of the original video, that guy actually did not have 20+ years of experience with platformers. Also, it's logically fallacious to assume that just because someone isn't an expert on something, that their opinion isn't valid, because even someone who isn't an expert at something can point out flaws or kinks in something, as well as recognize things that are good. But honestly? The guy who was playing Cuphead in that footage wasn't even responsible for reviewing the game, so there's no point in getting upset. The reason they even posted that video to begin with was because they found it amusing, not because it was supposed to be taken seriously. But you and many others took it seriously anyway. Hell, I did, until I read the description of the original video. Honestly, I think game journalists are getting overhated these days, while some criticism towards games journalists is definitely warranted, it seem likes a lot of people take what they say out of context, and mislead others, making them arguably just as bad as the game journalists they criticize, if not worse. If we keep holding game journalists to a perfect standard, and then start issuing hate and misleading others into doing the same, they never will. Honestly, even if we were constructive, they never will. Game journalists are human, unfortunately for them, and considering the pressure their companies put on them to review games fast (now this is something worthy of criticism, but towards the companies paying these journalists, rather than the journalists), it's only to be expected that they won't always be good at the games they play. Not that it matters, because, game journalists really aren't supposed to be experts at playing video games. They're supposed to experts at reviewing them. Do the two go hand in hand? Not necessarily, and I don't think it should be expected that is. At the end of the day, a lot of us play video games for passive enjoyment. It doesn't really make sense to me to expect game journalist's to be good at beating Dark Souls without taking damage. I do expect them, however to be fair at analyzing and reviewing the challenge present in the games they play, regardless if they're good at it or not. Other than unhelpful "it's too hard," or related vague complaints. The Sonic Unleashed review by IGN is still one of the worst reviews I've ever seen, because they don't provide good enough reasons for the bullshit they spouted.
@@Orange_Swirl I disagree with a lot of what you wrote but I am not devoting 2 hours of my time explaining why , if you want we can have a chat on discord and I will explain why I disagree with you in detail .
@@saula8948 See, the problem is that even though I know it's my fault I'm bad, your group usually acts like I'm making a personal attack at their favorite game.
@@pleasegoawaydude Nope , that is not me at all . I belong to no group , I belong to myself only . I am very critical of many games that I like and not just blindly praising it to the heavens and the more times I play and beat those games the more flaws I see with them and become even more critical . However if you're bad then complaining that its too hard is going to get you nowhere . People will make fun of you , especially if you blame the game rather than yourself . First of all why the hell do you care about what strangers on the internet think about you , any reason why you should give even the slightest damn ? There are thousands of games to play if certain games are too hard for you , if you're not willing to invest time to get better or both then play something else , simple as that .
Monster hunter is my favorite game that can either be a nightmare to someone who doesn't know what they're doing, or a breeze for a seasoned hunter. Doing all your prep and packing your items with three friends and a plan feels so good
Halfway through cuphead right now, kicking my ass but at the same time beating these bosses and especially the run n gun levels is awesome I remember yesterday of how happy I was when I defeated the dragon boss, seriously fuck that boss, the only boss that feels bullshit lol, all frustration that I had converted into happiness and gladness after beating it, now I see what accomplishing a challenge is
Got ultrakill the other week, and it’s already one of my favourite games of all time. It’s almost like it’s fun in it’s purest form - I love every second of that game.
A good game to note that rewards good skill is CrossCode. This game is a story driven action RPG with fun, challenging combat that doesnt cheap out on the difficulty, but they get around the difficulty by adding damage sliders so most people can experience the story. With the damage sliders, you can change how much damage you take and how much health an enemy has. As you reach the endgame however, you unlock the battle arena, which lets you play cups, which is a collection of enemy and boss gauntlets you can complete. You get scored on how good you did in the cup which will result in either bronze, silver, gold, or platinum. Whats cool about this though is the rewards for getting good scores. Cups reward you with points that allow you to get the best gear in the game, which isn't necessary for beating the game, but they offer unique perks to spice up gameplay if you shoot for these items. CrossCode is my favorite indie, I wish more people would play it :(
I've started Hollow Knight something around 2 months ago. I'm about 103% on the way to completion, and while I love it, I can't deny I'm not really GOOD at it. Even at the best of times I take tons of damage against bosses and have to stop and recharge a lot and I just gave up at the start on the Pantheons, in which I'm cheesing my way through thanks to the Invincibility Glitch™ (and I've already set a very strict limit to it: ONLY THE PANTHEONS, everything else I'm beating it legit). It took me hours to beat the Path of Pain (two of which were on THE LAST STRETCH OF IT) and I'm struggling a lot on the Trial of the Fool. But, even by exploiting the IG™ in the Pantheons, I'm not giving up. Even if I suck ass at it, I'm getting that 112% and that Platinum sooner or later.
After returning to Terraria to try out new update and summoner class for the first time, I have found the Empress of Light a very fun bossfight to perfect because if you fight her during daytime all of her attacks one shot you but if you manage to kill her you get one of the best weapons in the game. What i like about her is that the fight does not rely on rng and it all comes down to memorization of her patters and perfecting your inputs. Each attempt (i needed like 70) feels valuable because you know you won't die to random bullshit (cuz there is no random bs) if you keep playing right.
The reason people bash there head over it is because they want to see/earn it for themselves not everyone is happy with taking the easy road in life and just giving up and looking at someone else's achievement also like most things in life it's easy to get into a bad mindset and feel like things are against you or that things are unfair after exhausting yourself again and again trying to achieve something.
Also, I'm personally of the opinion that everything a game is supposed to offer should be accessible within the game itself. You shouldn't *have* to look up a video or download a mod to see the ending or whatever. That's why I feel Celeste is peak design (no pun intended) where accessibility is concerned; the game encourages players to push their limits, but it also ensures no part of the story is ever truly locked behind a difficulty barrier.
@@cyberfoxvii6253 Everyone keeps saying that about Celeste, but I tried it and I struggled for three hours without improving, because I'm just that bad. It's always so depressing to hear people talk about getting good at games, because I never have. I've been consistently bad at every game I've ever played, including games I've pumped thousands of hours into. God, y'all are so lucky.
@@pleasegoawaydude Well, what I'm talking about is Celeste's Assist Mode. It has various options for making the game easier; you can even have infinite dashes and invincibility (even against falling) if necessary. You should at least be able to experience the game's story that way. I don't know what advice I can give about your wider-scope problem... other than maybe a change of genre? There are strategy and puzzle games out there that give you all the time in the world to make decisions, no reflexes required! Opus Magnum is one I like; it presents engineering problems, and there's no one correct solution to any of them. You're encouraged to find _efficient_ solutions, sure, but even a horrendously inefficient one will allow you to advance, as long as it works (and it's so very satisfying to watch your creations run!).
rain world is my favorite game of all time, and the most satisfying to master imo. getting yourself stuck in a location with mechanics you barely understand Will get you stuck for a while, and result in a lot of deaths, but you Will get out of it and learn a lot along the way, which makes progressing after getting unstuck much easier and more exciting (since you've been stuck in one area for possible hours). while it doesn't check all of your potential reward boxes yet, it's getting a massive content update soon that will get it a lot closer. the update was originally started by modders who had mastered the game themselves and thought rain world needed more to do for players who've already mastered the game, and exhausted it's (pretty long) replay value. based on that, and update teasers (which include a challenge mode and new playable characters with new and exciting mechanics for each) the new content is likely to take advantage of rain worlds more obscure mechanics and reward players further for learning them.
Divine Relic from Cuphead is the epitome of this. To get the charm, you need to not only beat the Secret Boss, but then upgrade what is possibly the worst charm, since the broken not only randomises your weapons (feature carried to the divine variant) but also cuts your health down to 1 HP. 1 hit and it's curtains for you. But what do you get from these hard endeavours? Not only access to YOUR ENTIRE KIT, although randomised, but also EVERY SINGLE CHARM (besides the heart charms and p.shugar because it can't work with whetstone). Essentially you get an invincible dash, a parry attack, automatic super meter and bonus hp on parries. And you might say, that the random weapons make it inconsistent. I'd say the opposite. Having your entire kit, means you can adapt to basically everything the game throws at you and the fact that it's randomised rewards you for mastering each weapon. And yes, it kinda screws up Charge, but keep in mind that a charged shot already Deals more damage than almost all of the EX Attacks, so you should treat it more as just that, an EX Attack.
Fun story with Ultrakill and me personally: I have a processing imparment, which basically means my brain dosn't quite work as normal (kinda like dyslexia, but with more. I tell people that I'm basically 10 frames slower than everyone else). I have issues with lots of skill based games, where if I don't have fun to begin with, I simply just don't have a good time (for example, DMC and Souls games are simular levels of hard on my brain, yet I have fun with DMC) Ultrakill was rewarding enough to convince me to actually sit down and learn the game, to the point where I'm a somewhat compitant speedrunner, and slowly working my way through P-ranking all of act 1
fr, I legit had to learn insta rocket mount rewarding me with a higher cyber grind score due to the large amount of saves, pretty much solved my game mechanic issue
my favorite is oldschool runescape's bosses. There are so many bosses that seem impossible when you start that you can eventually kill them in your sleep, and the longer you kill them, the more little tricks you learn to make killing them slightly more efficient. You get slightly more perfect with every kill, and eventually you start doing things that you'd think were insane when you first started as if they're nothing. In addition to the regular drops, bosses also have a one in several thousands chance of dropping a pet, which keeps players motivated even when they're rich enough to not care about the loot, and there are special achievements for killing bosses in extremely challenging ways that only a handful of players have completed all of.
This topic reminds me of Terraria Calamity mod. If you need any help in the server, the first response is "get gud" if you're happy that you beat something bc you're new on the mod, it's just "now do it malice infernum eternity mode" (That's is, supposedly, the hardest you can get in a normal playthrough
The problem with getting rid of "skill issue" is, like you said with Path of Pain in Hollow Knight, people will find things too difficult/unfun and equate that to bad design. Recently in ULTRAKILL, the Whiplash (grapplehook) got nerfed due to being a low-skill, easy-to-rely-on catch all for the gameplay loop. This lead to many people who overused it to become 'worse' at the game: unable to beat previously beatable situations. Some adapted and overcame, (in my opinion) having more fun and being more skilled with the game in its 'intended' way, whilst others complained about the change, so much so that the game dropped from 9th highest rated on steam to 10th. The only real way to get people accept the new change is saying "skill issue" and "git gud", as that is legitimately the solution to the problem (although, perhaps a tad reductive). If left unsaid, then it only reinforces the idea that the nerf was bad design and that it should be reverted, despite it arguable fulfilling the game's major focuses: skill and fun.
There is an emotional fallacy that being good or bad at a game makes you a better or worse person. Related to this, there is another emotional attachment to the expression "git gud", which is literally what you need to do in order to pass certain skill challenges.
Yeah while it doesnt make someone better or worse as a person, if someone beats a challange I cant...they are better at than me at this topic. And most skill challanges can only be beaten with skill, so the only response is "practice more." Its like running races, if someone beats me, they are better at running, and the only advice they can give is "run faster" or "its not that hard actually if you keep trying."
Everyone is better than me at video games, and I hate the fact that no matter how smart I am, or how skilled I am in the real world, I'll always be shit at every game I play.
@@pleasegoawaydude and there are people who cant play music or draw or what have you. Theres no shame in going "ah yeah Im not that good at this" and still doing the thing. I personally cant play music. Pianos especially have too many unmarked buttons that its wild to me that anyone could know what they are let alone figure it out precisely in the moment. But given the chance Ill still tap a 2 key rhythm in which I just go a-b-a-b-a-a-b. Its not good, but Im just fidgeting and having fun. Similarly, games are, to have fun. You should pick a game you have fun playing and play that.
ok this is kinda weird but, osu! is probably one of the most satisfying games to be good at, at least for me. the feeling of getting good at the game and beating hard levels is so satisfying. also having trouble with some maps and then coming back when you're better and seeing that it is way easier then before just makes you feel like a god!
(1:01) "Some people just wanna chill with a little terraria after a long day" *Calamity Mod would like to know your location* *Fargo's Souls would like to know your location*
Interesting. In my opinion, having story content locked behind some sort of difficulty spike is super annoying. As someone who has beaten the kh3 final mix bosses, I sympathize completely with people who looked it up online or just went to easy mode. Imo it is a negative on the games end for hiding story content behind harder endgame fights where I think it the rewards should be more cosmetic.
I think it depends what audience the developers are looking for. If a mario game had a special cutscene that only played when you do something perfectly, that would defeat the point of the game. However in a game like elden ring having a bunch of different convoluted and confusing to get endings is probably a good idea
@@icedragon9097 I think I see what you mean, but to me, the kind of players that 100% things or complete the hardest challenges would already be satisfied by the challenge itself and having conquered it. So I would think even the small special cutscene that plays for doing something super difficult would be enough for someone. As for the elden ring take, I haven't played the game, but having something special for doing each ending would be sick.
My favorite type of skill reward in games, is replayability. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice does this immaculately. There are two, stackable ways this game does this: Charmless and the Bell Demon. After your first playthrough, at the start of each subsequent playthrough either at NG+ or a fresh save file, you have the item to get rid of a "new" item called "Kuro's Charm." Getting rid of this item does certain things (I think it increases enemy stats, but I'm not sure), but chief among them is enabling chip damage on imperfect blocks, which greatly adds pressure to play better. Partway through each playthrough, at the end of a hidden side path, you can obtain the "Bell Demon." This makes the enemies hit twice as hard and have twice as much health, or close enough to not matter. Grabbing both of these items at the beginning of each playthrough is how I enjoy my yearly-or-so replay of Sekiro. It's the easiest of the From games on a repeat playthrough, so this is essentially required if you don't want to just bulldoze through the game. I've played through the game twice now using both of these methods simultaneously, and each time is fantastic. When people say "it's not that hard, you just need to learn the moveset" they genuinely mean it. There's also other things: hollow knight-esque boss rushes reward moves and cosmetics, and are excellent for the bragging rights in general.
The Touhou series usually rewards you with an extra stage if you beat the game without using continues. Touhou is a bullet hell game which is fairly beginner friendly, but the extra stages and hard/lunatic is where the real difficulty is The extra stages always feature some kind of unique mechanic for the boss, something you're not used to and something the "base mode" did not prepare you for, and it's amazing! Personally the extra stages are super fun Touhou always rewards you for playing good with either more content, survival, power AND the visual effect Touhou 18.5 literally is based upon playing good as it's more of a roguelike where you can choose certain items to start with The game has a black market and a market The black market lets you buy stuff during the 5min run and the market lets you buy permanent cards that you can later choose to start with them If you are good at the game, you can choose not to spend anything on the black market and save money to buy these permanent cards but if you lose the run, you don't get any money. In any case, you can still buy the permanent cards if you bought stuff from the market, and the prices are adjusted for that. Now, if you're a tryhard completionist, you might aswell try and take the challenge and I love that. Please cover Touhou games someday! They're IMO peak game design in every way possible, but many people are scared of it because they see screenshots of the hardest difficulty and they thing the game is like that all the time
Team Fortress 2 is for sure in the same category as the games you mentioned here. Seeing my sheer improvement over the course of my time playing TF2 has been incredible. In only 500 hours i went from an idiot with no idea what i was doing to regularly pub stomping and carrying my team (I main medic)
Titanfall 2 even though it is a multiplayer game. This game has amazing movement and a number of extremely fun weapons. SMGs and ARs are objectively the strongest weapons in the game but good players rarely use them because getting kills with EPG or kraber while flying across the map at top speed is super satisfying. Players get to express their skill and mastery of movement and shooting mechanics of the game without turning it into a boring sweaty camping simulator.
My experience with gaming is very different from everyone else's... Basically, what playing a game is to me is failure -> punishment -> repeat until either I find out I'm a fool or I spend hours on it and give up I have rarely ever actually improved in skill, and the way I beat a game now is usually not very different from the way I've beaten it for the first time, and I will always die a huge amount of times on the same boss. I have never beaten any video game ever. I have gone through some emulated games with save states, but that does not count. I truly do have an unsolvable skill issue. This is part of the reasons why I never actually play games ever.
This is literally the same, and I have long since given up on any difficulty above Easy/Very Easy. I just play rare singleplayer games with good stories now.
What comes to mind for me is Armored Core, if only because I've been playing their games recently. It's a game about building a giant mech and taking on missions as a mercenary in your giant mech. One notable feature is that ammo and repairs comes straight out of your wallet, so if you take too many damage and/or spend too much ammo, you'll lose more money than you gain from taking on the mission. This forces player to get good at the game so that they can earn enough money to buy new parts and weapons to try out and to think about how they want to play the game as they chose what to buy. And getting good at the game really makes you feel like this giant death machine and that you and your mech is an extension of oneself. At least that's how I feel. Did I mention that it was made by From Software?
I'm currently playing Spark the Electric Jester 3, and I've never felt a stronger need to 100% complete a game before. The gameplay loop swaps between speed, exploration, and combat in such a way that I don't get bored going through the same stage those 3-4 times to unlock the speed, score, and exploration medals.
I got interested in to harder games that reward perfecting them by getting much better at Super Smash Brothers Melee which is the most rewarding game I have played because being able to beat players that used to beat you feels so good, and you can really see the improvement when you practice your tech skill one day and the next your noticeably better because of the work you put in
Ultrakill is on another level. One challange is to finish a level without touching water. The tricky part is that the level is AN UNDERWATER LEVEL. And the solution to this challenge is hilarious.
We are not in a golden era of games. Also a games good or secret ending should never be locked behind a boss rush mode that is absurd. People play games like hollow Knight so that they can leave a negative review because its actually poorly designed and they went through the effort of beating the game so that they aren't given the but you didn't play it how would you know treatment. Not because it's not the kind of game for them. The white palace or whatever it's called is a super meat boy excursion when you've been playing a metroidvania the entire time. That is bad design period.
i do agree that ultrakill does a great job with this! i do have a bit of a Skill Issue, but ultrakill's gameplay is engaging enough - and the allure of a P-rank is strong enough - for me to keep coming back and trying to get a better rank, and i think i'm making some progress. i think it helps that the "easy" difficulties have been rebranded to "accessible", and the "normal" difficulties to "hard", presumably to avoid shaming people who struggle with certain parts of gameplay. it allows players to just focus on playing the game in a way that's fun for _them,_ rather than feeling guilty about not being good enough to play at the intended difficulty, which actually allows them to learn the more complex mechanics at their own pace.
props to you by including a spoiler protection in the ultrakill section, I always see people praising the game while spoiling every single aspect of it, not letting newcomers discover fun things in it.
The ClaDun games have a "Fame" mechanic. For every second shaved from the stage record (including new personal bests) you get 1 Fame point. Of course, you can bribe the system and buy Fame but it'll be forever be painted brown.
Vermintide for me, especially the original one. It was such a skill based first person melee game. Yes there were upgraded weapons you could acquire over time but you needed to know how to use them, and otherwise there was no real levelling up. Mastering the weapons and gameplay set you miles apart from your companions, and rewarded you with that godlike feeling of being the sole survivor after your friends all perished, slaughtering your way to revive them.
@@gorilla_2282 I wanna be the guy and I wanne be the Boshi aren't sacrificing fun, they are catering to a different type of player. In a similar vein to Jump King and Getting Over it. The point is that it feels like the game is actively trying to stop you from progressing so that overcoming it feels that much better.
It's weird how "skill" is always a stand-in for "mechanical skill", when mechanical skill is the least skillful part of the playing toolkit. By that I mean that your reactions can barely be trained and basic pattern recognition and the building of muscle memory isn't anything special. In other words: When gatekeeping Gamers (tm) talk about skill, they talk about something that isn't that special to achieve but for some people simply unachievable. It's like running - running is very easy to learn and you can certainly improve, but your personal "skill" cap is pretty much hard determined by your genes. Now compare that to strategical skill - your Paradox games, strategy in general, TRPGs and perhaps even SDV which you used as a casual game. Perfecting those games is much much harder than any soulslike, because there is virtually no cap on how good you can get. "Good" in this case means knowledgable, efficient, fast (not necessarily quick). Even the best SDV or strategy players will make obvious mistakes, because perfecting the game means juggling so many things at the same time, that a perfect player will not be perfect because they know everything and succeed at everything, but because they know how to recover and improvise in a highly complex situation. And the beauty of it is that your mortal coil limits your abilities very little. Sure, if you lack the computing power to analyze situations, you will have a harder time, but experience can make up for it. And that's just the answer to the "skill issue". A game doesn't get hard because the developer wants it to be hard, a game gets hard by having so much to offer that while everyone can beat it, beating it in certain ways requires creative thinking and deep knowledge. That's why I routinely roll my eyes at games that are advertised as "difficult" - because that's just a cheap shortcut and poor excuse for actual difficulty.
DS Series, Doom Eternal and Hollow Knight are the only games soo far that i got soo engaged with due to the ways the difficulty was structured that i 100%'d them, including the hardest challenges in each.
One of the best games that awards perfection in my opinion is one that not many people have heard of but that I personally am very fond of myself. Juke's towers of hell is a 3D platforming game that somehow manages to have an incredibly low skill floor yet have a skill ceiling that even the best players haven't yet hit despite it being around since 2018. The prospect of the game is simple, there are various worlds with towers in them and it's your job to climb to the top of as many as you can beating harder and harder ones in the process. The main catch that makes this game so punishing and rewarding though is that there is not a single checkpoint in this game whatsoever, where you fall is where you land making completing these towers a rewarding test of a players consistency with the games movement mechanics. I've been playing it and slowly getting better since back when it first released and going through beating some of this games harder towers has been one of the most challenging yet rewarding things I've done in a video game. Would highly recommend checking it out if you're in for a challenging experience (would recommend watching a few tutorials if you struggle at the start though because I will admit the game can be somewhat esoteric to begin).
For me it's Jedi Fallen Order, (probably cause i'm a huge SW fan) but yeah doing perfect ultra instinct dodges, perfect parries and deflects made me feel like a fucking Jedi Master
Boneraiser Minions is a cool little game that basically gets better as you play it more with the unlocks. super fun for how dang cheap it is too. I think it's better than Vampire Survivors
Dead cells also did what ultrakill did and lately added a new assist mode that even clarify the point of its not about make a hard grindy time for you as to make you challenge yourself the way that make it fun not frustrating
New Game+ is always a good incentive of increasing skill while rewarding more game, and DMC 5 (I have yet to play the others I’m sorry) does this amazingly with its MULTIPLE NG+cycles where every level is revamped with new enemy encounters, plus there is the Bloody Palace, a timed gauntlet of increasing challenge where you are rewarded depending on how skilled you are at completing layers both quickly and without taking damage
It's funny that gaming takes about 80% of my free time but I still suck almost at every hardcore game, it's enormous how much talent matters on this field
DMC5? Died to a few bosses and couldn't figure out Dante at all at the begining now the game is 100% Vergil included and Dante is now the one doing work.
Personally, the reason I don't look up how to do stuff in some games is one: spoilers, and two: I shouldn't HAVE to look up how to do something in a game. If I can't think of any way past an obstacle, then I'll look it up. But I always feel bitter when I'm forced to do so.
Would it be weird to say rainworld? While it's not for everyone, I love the beautiful world and enigmatic lore and there is always something new to discover and do, but it is locked behind a wall made of anger and frustration from the aggression of practically every other living thing and the unwieldy controls ( I recommend NOT using a controller), requiring a bit of grinding and learning to truly start appreciating this gem.
While I greatly disagree with the general FPS take, I absolutely agree with both Ultrakill and will add Doom Eternal to that for similar reasons. These games reward you through in game mechanics. They are a power fantasy through your own player improvement, not just because the game says so. It's so, so satisfying.
I really really liked Ghostrunner. I love that you can get the Platinum trophy without having to play on a hard difficulty. Unlocking a harder difficulty after beating a game is always an awesome addition, especially when the levels or enemies are changed in some way. Not less health, more damage, less ammo, shit like that. A really good reward for skilled gameplay is a harder set up. Ghost runner did a really good job with that I believe.
@@Pogobro IKR??!?!?! I am loving it thoroughly even if my time is always shit, but that's because i explore a lot for the secrets in each level, that first secret mission spooked the shit out of me, i loved it. Also the OST is fucking incredible and i can't get enough of it, imagine what this game will be like when it's finished, probably a masterpiece, although it already is that.
Eh... The problem is that far too many people don't want to learn how to play challenging games, but then want to complain that they are challenging. Let's be honest, some people who play games these days aren't in it for the challenge, but still want to play the games that become popular in the gaming community. What games become popular? Challenging ones, cause "gamers' like challenge. This is why they take offense at the "get good" lines, because they don't want to get good, they want to play the game, despite it not being a game they enjoy.
I really don't want to learn challenging games, no. Because I've already earned the right to say I shouldn't have to work to have fun anymore. I've been shit at games for years, and I've kept pushing and trying to learn and getting absolutely nowhere and I'm tired. I hate the fact that I have no option but to either fail repeatedly and just not get anywhere, or to play on easy and feel depressed.
I would like to add Furi to the list of these types of games. Unsurprisingly, its hard, and the Furier difficulty only makes it harder. But each fight is so expertly crafted and geneuinely fun that despite all the odds, it never feels completely unfair for the player.
*clears throat* (I actually cleared my throat in real life) Terraria is not a game one could chill out to. In fact, even classic mode can cause much pain even to seasoned gamers. Not to mention expert and master, as well as secret seeds such as for the worthy, the constant, and not the bees. Terraria is just as difficult as a gam like cuphead and hollow knight, although not many have realized this due to their focus on the games the community calls hard. Alternatively it might be that I was playing on an iPad mini
dark souls is THE MOST (imo) satisfying game in existence. beating any boss or hard enemy on the first try is incredible, and some of them mechanics require frame-perfect timing
So my opinion on the "Skill issue" is i prefer a game that doesnt block you off when you dont perform well, but rewards you when you do. Using Ultrakill as the example, the only thing locked behind playing perfectly is the P door. Progression can be done with a moderate amount of skill, Weapon skins are unlocked via orbs or money, Secret Missions and alt weapons are unlocked via exploration and so on. The P doors are the only content hard locked behind playing perfectly so someone who struggles with filling out the p ranks only misses a minor fraction of content. That being said there is another thing ultrakill does. Those grades at the end of level almost taunt you to do better.
Enter the Gundgeon health reward for no damage *DOES punish* who play worse or can't be super pro. It's not designed equally among the players of all skills. Who do you think need hp more? Those who struggle and learning the game or try hards who steam roll the game? *More hp allows for more mistakes to be made, which IS NEEDED for less skilled* . There is no single reason to hide such crucial stat and give it to someone who has less problem. The binding of Isaac for not taking red heart damage reward with weapons and utility items, but hp item are always dropped from boss, regardless if you took damage or not.
Counterpoint, the master rounds are primarily not a health upgrade, but game rewards used for achievements and upgrades. The health upgrade part is just to make it not useless. And its not a crucial upgrade, the overall benefit of making your max hp 8 instead of 6 is rather negligible. Not getting a reward is not punishment the way I see it.
"Some people just wanna chill with a little terraria after a long day" I spent almost 7 hours just to kill a single cosmic worm, a fire chicken that probably cause most of the world forest fire on malice, my mentality is just broken
“Some people just wanna chill with a little terraria after a long day” - Me about to go and kill 15 different god like beings and then get killed by a random boulder
to me the game that puch me masteringg it is league no not the ranking , a bit of the mastery system , but when u do "the moove" whetever u are gold , iron or grandmaster it feel so good
Celeste does it phenomenally. You beat the level, you are rewarded with a more challenging version of the level. Assist mode prevents casual players from hating the game, collectibles that are fun to find and collect. And finally, the sheer confidence of all of farewell, a level that takes 4-5 hours to beat the first time, thousands of deaths, and still provides story. Not to mention golden berries that give a visual reward for beating a level deathless. Celeste and ultrakill are easily my top 2 games of all time
What was the point of your premise? That being elitist is a bad thing. But following up with examples of mastering game mechanics is fun and rewarding.
i dont like style metters because they reward certain playstyles while not others even if they are totally viable. Today i played ultrakill cybergrind the whole day using railcannon screw thing and then i learned from youtube thag it doesnt give you any style. I like DOOM Eternal because instead of the game measuring how well ur doing u can play however u want and as long as you win its a good playstyle. In DOOM Eternal you dont have to do anything to be able to play the dlc (except pay lmao) but you have to learn all mechanics if you want to beat it.
I think Just Shapes and Beats is rewarding. You can unlock new songs if you are good at playing so there's that. The game doesn't punish you for failing and it even has an easy mode in which the message has a more "Too hard? Well, press this and have fun" energy rather than feeling insulting. The developers really wanted the game to be enjoyable and not an elitist cult Edit: Human Fall Flat is also VERY rewarding when you're good at it. Heck, you're even allowed to think out of the box to circumvent a puzzle you don't know how to do. So, even if you can't think of the "intended" solution, you can just say "screw it" and make your own. The game will never punish you for being creative. And while I know this isn't "mastering the game" the game still rewards you for thinking, regardless if it was the way they intended or not!
Risk of Rain 2 is less rewarding but it gives you a second skin for you characters and a mastery achievement if you beat the game on monsoon (the hardest difficulty) I’ve only done it with one character, but I have to say it looks way cooler than the original (Also for clarification it’s the only other skin than the original, which makes it more valuable as it’s 1/2 instead of 1/20 or something)
Whats the most difficult thing you have done in a game?
Beating every single boss fight without dying once throughout the entire boss rush run.
You only have one life in that game, but I made a rule that makes you restart all of the bosses when you take a hit, so that was very cool.
Pantheon 5 of HollowKnight. 1 mask left, battling Abs Rad, with the 4th stage activating, I depressingly dragged myself up the “staircase”, thinking it would be yet another death. And yet somehow I pulled through in the end. That moment when I landed that last strike and the shade lord was summoned was the closest moment in my life I have ever legitimately felt like I could’ve had a heart attack.
@@littlesillycat which game?
S ranking all boss in Cuphead
@@Pogobro It's a relatively unknown game, it's called "Nameless Cat" and it's pretty fun.
There's only four bosses but they're quite difficult to get through with only one health so I'd say that it's quite the challenge.
It's also a puzzle game, so when you're not fighting the bosses on 1 HP, you're dealing with the puzzles on 1 HP, although you've got checkpoints through the levels, not the boss fights though.
I agree. Ultrakill is definitely a game of all time.
it may in fact be THE game of all time
@@Pogobro maybe because it IS THE GAME OF ALL TIME!
Truly a THE GAME OF ALL TIME moment
@Hoovy Simulator 2 no it wasn't it was when i pirated the game i mean bought it
@@Pogobro it is definitely one of the games ever
"some people just wanna chill with a little terraria after a long day"
me with 400 attempts on death master providence: yes
-skill issue-
jk, though i barely play terraria calamity mod ever since 1.4.5 but usually i memorized providence attack order.
don't even need calamity tbh, just daylight EoL will do wonders to a casual player
Defiled Malice Providence would like to say hello.
saying skill issue in a serious way means you have a skill issue in human interaction
absolutely
Skill issue in commenting about skill issue
Whats wrong with someone having poor skills at the game and someone else point 👉 ing to tha?
@@ZZaGGrrUzz there are ways to point it out without making fun of the person
@@BulbaGaming123 don't be so seeeeerious
It might sound wierd, but one of my favourite examples of "rewarding skilled players" is Super Mario Odyssey.
Now, mario odyssey is by no means a hard game, you can be awful at video games and still get through. But the thing about odyssey is how much faster you can get through if you are skilled.
Almost all bosses in Odyssey have something called "speed strats", which is harder way you defeat the boss, but takes way less time. Some of these "speed strats" can be extremely hard to get consistently and have ended many speedruns. Odysseys incredible movement system also has a very high skill ceiling, giving you the ability to skip some areas by making a hard jump.
The game is practically desinged with speedrunning in mind, while still being very accessible by less experienced players.
Odyssey even has an assist mode which shows you the path to the next story moon, doubles your base health, allows you to sit still to restore that health, gives you infinite air underwater, and prevent you from falling off the stage/into lava by placing you back on solid ground and taking one HP. It’s also the first mainline Mario game to not have a lives system, instead having Mario drop 10 coins that can even be recovered provided they fall on safe ground
My favorite related mod of this is the hide and seek mod where it favors both skill and luck.
@@WhoIsJoe31 Can you please explain what that has to do with my comment?
@@hulias3107 you talked about the game being accessible to new players. I added that the game has an assist mode.
I replayed Mario 3D Land two days ago and I can confirm it's the same
As someone that has been playing videogames for a long time and is a hardcore player of character-action games I can say for sure that right now ULTRAKILL is my favourite game.
It's easy to pick, gives choice on the difficulty, has complex mechanics, extremely fun gameplay and rewards player expression and skills.
I haven't seen many character-action games well made in the first place and I've never seen an integration done so well of another genre into an FPS.
Let's hope that this will push character-action games and the likes to the next level, because as a genre series like DMC or Bayonetta are quite niche and don't get a lot of content on the long run, so the more the merrier :)
Complex mechanics is right, I had no idea you could shoot the coin with the other revolver's lazer until I read about it in the weapon description, letalone punching the coin...
@@theanomaloushendo4516 Wait until you find out about chargebacks.
I don't think it's stated anywhere in game so I'll spoil it here, don't read below the line if you don't want the secrets spilled
-------------------
A chargeback is when you take a coin and hit it with a laser. Now, I know what you're thinking, that's just an ultraricoshot. But you see, a chargeback is more than just an ultraricoshot, because you do it with someone else's laser. Whether it's Maurice (Malicious face), one of the sentries introduced in Act II, or a similar laser, if you can make them hit your coin, it's a chargeback. Honestly one of the most fun mechanics. Learning about chargebacks, slam storage, and projectile boost instakills on the Mindflayers really sells the game for me, which is insane because my favorite thing I've found to do is ignore all the fun weapon tech and start P ranking everything with no weapons equipped. I've beaten V2 to death with my bare hands and did it with enough style to P rank the level twice over. It's such a rush. But the game's just deep, and that lets you swim in the pool your own way.
I personally like Skill Based video games, as beating that one boss you were stuck on is just so satisfying.
Although my personal preference is Strategic Video Games.
Video Games where you need to think two steps ahead and calculate everything, with some of my favourites being:
"Pokémon Platinum", "Pokémon Ruby" and Pokémon Nuzlockes in general. Although it's obviously not something that everyone likes.
That's the reason I love playing those types of games whenever I do. Slowly going from Inkwell Isle 3 in Cuphead being a struggle for me to beat to now beating it twice as fast as I did back in 2017 is a very rewarding feeling within itself. Inkwell Isle 4 really helped improve my skills though lol
Chess
@@asuka376 Yeah Chess too
expect Pokémon isn't a strategy game
@@antonioudovicic4899 you obviously don't know what you're talking about. What exactly is pokemon then? Do you know what a nuzlocke is? Define strategy. You can have many different forms of strategy. Even in games that aren't "strategy" games. Pokemon is more strategy game than others. ESPECIALLY if you put self imposed rules. Try again.
One part of the whole master round gungeon-thing is that it allows you to unlock elevators to skip the floor, only if you perfect it. The ladder part is literally literal, not skill wise, but as "i'm skipping this easy boss so i can get to the boss i struggle, sooner". It does kinda make it harder as you only get 1 gun for skipping a floor, while if you do that entire floor, you can get all of the rewards that might help with the next one. It's a very Risk (dying because you have a shitty gun that a rat gave you) vs Reward (because it's spared you about 5 minutes)
yeah I really only unlocked the elevators to get to boss rush, I enjoy the game enought that starting from floor 1 every time is fun!
@@Pogobro yeah it’s so fun starting over 🥲🥲
@@37erss no seriously it's more fun than elevators, because the weapon you get as skipping a floor compensation is significantly worse than if you just went and did the floor, so you can play with more funny guns and stuff
Dead Cells and Hollow Knight are my hard games of choice. In Dead Cells, I have a currently perfect challenge portal record. In Hollow Knight, I've managed to beat the game, but I'm gearing up for The Pantheon of Hallownest.
Nice! My 2 favorite games too! Good luck with 5bsc and POH.
5bc looks way harder than P5 so i think you can do it
@@m4rcyonstation93 I disagree. Killed secret 5bsc boss hitless, but have not been able to beat P5.
@@chetacheese2789 Idk personally i beat P5 decently easily and can barely even do 0BC
I never imagined cuphead and ultrakill put in a thumbnail together.
when I was making the video I kept laughing at the Doom chainsaw kill to cuphead transition
@@Pogobro Yeah that's wild lmao
People should say when someone's bad " in sorry for your lost"
I really love Furi's method of rewarding the player, it is very very simple but the higher rank you get on a fight the more a piece of concept art is revealed to you relating to that boss fight. Also the special method at the end of beating the game on hard mode is fantastic
I beat hollow knight with nearly 60 percent game completion out of pure spite.
I told my friend I did not like the game play in general and was accused of not playing it right and being told I'm probably just not good at it.
So I beat the whole thing (which let me say the only real problem I had was fighting the watcher knights) and a bunch of not required things just cause.
I can still say it's only alright not my kinda game.
It's good if you enjoy those types of games, it's honestly one of my favorite games since I enjoy the challenge and not being able to beat pure vessel for a week
@@AOJ-z3m I've beat elden ring 4 times trust me im no stranger to getting stuck on bosses
yeah, hollow knight just feels stale and boring, yes I've beat it, just not my kind of game
@@h_oom4114 thank you. I even love Metroidvanias, but Hollow Knight brings absolutely nothing new to the table. I can see why people would like it if it was one of their first few forays in the genre, but it's really just mediocre. Not bad, not great. Just right in the middle.
@@bbbbbbb51 I'm sorry, but the game is not mediocre. Even of you don't like it you have to accept it's a very, very good game
So the games resolve players' skill issues by giving a proper incentives to players to overcome their skill issues. Got it.
If only that worked for me
@@pleasegoawaydude practice more. Record yourself and analyse what you are doing wrong. Everyone can improve and gain skills.
The problem with 'skill issue' and 'git gud' and other statements like it, is that there's a difference between bragging about being better than someone and saying, 'you're not making any glaring mistakes, you just need to learn how to more efficiently do what you're already trying to do.' Souls-likes are a great example
It depends on how the person responds , if the person that is struggling isn't complaining that it's the games' problem but their own , people will usually be willing to give advice and be encouraging .
However if the person is saying this game sucks its too hard then people are far more likely going to make fun of them .
That game journalist that played Cuphead deserved to get clowned on , how can somebody with supposedly 20 years of gaming experience play like its the first time they held a controller in their life , the dude spent like 10 minutes on the tutorial and couldn't beat the first level after like 30+ minutes of attempts , if people like those review video games how is anybody suppose to take video game journalists seriously , they are already a big joke as it is .
@@saula8948 I'm sorry, but I disagree with your take on the Cuphead journalist. If you take a look at the description of the original video, that guy actually did not have 20+ years of experience with platformers.
Also, it's logically fallacious to assume that just because someone isn't an expert on something, that their opinion isn't valid, because even someone who isn't an expert at something can point out flaws or kinks in something, as well as recognize things that are good.
But honestly? The guy who was playing Cuphead in that footage wasn't even responsible for reviewing the game, so there's no point in getting upset. The reason they even posted that video to begin with was because they found it amusing, not because it was supposed to be taken seriously.
But you and many others took it seriously anyway. Hell, I did, until I read the description of the original video.
Honestly, I think game journalists are getting overhated these days, while some criticism towards games journalists is definitely warranted, it seem likes a lot of people take what they say out of context, and mislead others, making them arguably just as bad as the game journalists they criticize, if not worse.
If we keep holding game journalists to a perfect standard, and then start issuing hate and misleading others into doing the same, they never will. Honestly, even if we were constructive, they never will. Game journalists are human, unfortunately for them, and considering the pressure their companies put on them to review games fast (now this is something worthy of criticism, but towards the companies paying these journalists, rather than the journalists), it's only to be expected that they won't always be good at the games they play.
Not that it matters, because, game journalists really aren't supposed to be experts at playing video games. They're supposed to experts at reviewing them.
Do the two go hand in hand? Not necessarily, and I don't think it should be expected that is. At the end of the day, a lot of us play video games for passive enjoyment. It doesn't really make sense to me to expect game journalist's to be good at beating Dark Souls without taking damage. I do expect them, however to be fair at analyzing and reviewing the challenge present in the games they play, regardless if they're good at it or not. Other than unhelpful "it's too hard," or related vague complaints.
The Sonic Unleashed review by IGN is still one of the worst reviews I've ever seen, because they don't provide good enough reasons for the bullshit they spouted.
@@Orange_Swirl I disagree with a lot of what you wrote but I am not devoting 2 hours of my time explaining why , if you want we can have a chat on discord and I will explain why I disagree with you in detail .
@@saula8948 See, the problem is that even though I know it's my fault I'm bad, your group usually acts like I'm making a personal attack at their favorite game.
@@pleasegoawaydude Nope , that is not me at all . I belong to no group , I belong to myself only . I am very critical of many games that I like and not just blindly praising it to the heavens and the more times I play and beat those games the more flaws I see with them and become even more critical .
However if you're bad then complaining that its too hard is going to get you nowhere . People will make fun of you , especially if you blame the game rather than yourself .
First of all why the hell do you care about what strangers on the internet think about you , any reason why you should give even the slightest damn ?
There are thousands of games to play if certain games are too hard for you , if you're not willing to invest time to get better or both then play something else , simple as that .
Monster hunter is my favorite game that can either be a nightmare to someone who doesn't know what they're doing, or a breeze for a seasoned hunter. Doing all your prep and packing your items with three friends and a plan feels so good
Halfway through cuphead right now, kicking my ass but at the same time beating these bosses and especially the run n gun levels is awesome
I remember yesterday of how happy I was when I defeated the dragon boss, seriously fuck that boss, the only boss that feels bullshit lol, all frustration that I had converted into happiness and gladness after beating it, now I see what accomplishing a challenge is
OMG I’m in a pretty far zone in the game now but ThAT DRAGON took 2 MONTHS my lord, gg dude
Skul is a total sleeper hit.
Got ultrakill the other week, and it’s already one of my favourite games of all time. It’s almost like it’s fun in it’s purest form - I love every second of that game.
The more you play it - the more you will like it.
A good game to note that rewards good skill is CrossCode. This game is a story driven action RPG with fun, challenging combat that doesnt cheap out on the difficulty, but they get around the difficulty by adding damage sliders so most people can experience the story. With the damage sliders, you can change how much damage you take and how much health an enemy has. As you reach the endgame however, you unlock the battle arena, which lets you play cups, which is a collection of enemy and boss gauntlets you can complete. You get scored on how good you did in the cup which will result in either bronze, silver, gold, or platinum. Whats cool about this though is the rewards for getting good scores. Cups reward you with points that allow you to get the best gear in the game, which isn't necessary for beating the game, but they offer unique perks to spice up gameplay if you shoot for these items. CrossCode is my favorite indie, I wish more people would play it :(
Although it's apparently in Pre-Alpha, I'd really love to know what the game shown at 8:10 is. I feel like I've seen it on Twitter at some point.
I second this, the animation got me glued to the screen in an instant.
It's called Project Terra
@@b4c0n_89 thank you!
I've started Hollow Knight something around 2 months ago. I'm about 103% on the way to completion, and while I love it, I can't deny I'm not really GOOD at it. Even at the best of times I take tons of damage against bosses and have to stop and recharge a lot and I just gave up at the start on the Pantheons, in which I'm cheesing my way through thanks to the Invincibility Glitch™ (and I've already set a very strict limit to it: ONLY THE PANTHEONS, everything else I'm beating it legit). It took me hours to beat the Path of Pain (two of which were on THE LAST STRETCH OF IT) and I'm struggling a lot on the Trial of the Fool. But, even by exploiting the IG™ in the Pantheons, I'm not giving up. Even if I suck ass at it, I'm getting that 112% and that Platinum sooner or later.
After returning to Terraria to try out new update and summoner class for the first time, I have found the Empress of Light a very fun bossfight to perfect because if you fight her during daytime all of her attacks one shot you but if you manage to kill her you get one of the best weapons in the game.
What i like about her is that the fight does not rely on rng and it all comes down to memorization of her patters and perfecting your inputs.
Each attempt (i needed like 70) feels valuable because you know you won't die to random bullshit (cuz there is no random bs) if you keep playing right.
if they do terraria 2 I hope the bosses are like Empress of Light, you are right it is a REALLY good fight
Neon White, it's movement mechanics just feel so great that even if I spend an hour trying to secret a level I never get bored
The reason people bash there head over it is because they want to see/earn it for themselves not everyone is happy with taking the easy road in life and just giving up and looking at someone else's achievement also like most things in life it's easy to get into a bad mindset and feel like things are against you or that things are unfair after exhausting yourself again and again trying to achieve something.
Also, I'm personally of the opinion that everything a game is supposed to offer should be accessible within the game itself. You shouldn't *have* to look up a video or download a mod to see the ending or whatever. That's why I feel Celeste is peak design (no pun intended) where accessibility is concerned; the game encourages players to push their limits, but it also ensures no part of the story is ever truly locked behind a difficulty barrier.
@@cyberfoxvii6253 Everyone keeps saying that about Celeste, but I tried it and I struggled for three hours without improving, because I'm just that bad.
It's always so depressing to hear people talk about getting good at games, because I never have. I've been consistently bad at every game I've ever played, including games I've pumped thousands of hours into.
God, y'all are so lucky.
@@pleasegoawaydude Well, what I'm talking about is Celeste's Assist Mode. It has various options for making the game easier; you can even have infinite dashes and invincibility (even against falling) if necessary. You should at least be able to experience the game's story that way.
I don't know what advice I can give about your wider-scope problem... other than maybe a change of genre? There are strategy and puzzle games out there that give you all the time in the world to make decisions, no reflexes required! Opus Magnum is one I like; it presents engineering problems, and there's no one correct solution to any of them. You're encouraged to find _efficient_ solutions, sure, but even a horrendously inefficient one will allow you to advance, as long as it works (and it's so very satisfying to watch your creations run!).
rain world is my favorite game of all time, and the most satisfying to master imo. getting yourself stuck in a location with mechanics you barely understand Will get you stuck for a while, and result in a lot of deaths, but you Will get out of it and learn a lot along the way, which makes progressing after getting unstuck much easier and more exciting (since you've been stuck in one area for possible hours). while it doesn't check all of your potential reward boxes yet, it's getting a massive content update soon that will get it a lot closer. the update was originally started by modders who had mastered the game themselves and thought rain world needed more to do for players who've already mastered the game, and exhausted it's (pretty long) replay value. based on that, and update teasers (which include a challenge mode and new playable characters with new and exciting mechanics for each) the new content is likely to take advantage of rain worlds more obscure mechanics and reward players further for learning them.
Divine Relic from Cuphead is the epitome of this.
To get the charm, you need to not only beat the Secret Boss, but then upgrade what is possibly the worst charm, since the broken not only randomises your weapons (feature carried to the divine variant) but also cuts your health down to 1 HP. 1 hit and it's curtains for you. But what do you get from these hard endeavours?
Not only access to YOUR ENTIRE KIT, although randomised, but also EVERY SINGLE CHARM (besides the heart charms and p.shugar because it can't work with whetstone).
Essentially you get an invincible dash, a parry attack, automatic super meter and bonus hp on parries.
And you might say, that the random weapons make it inconsistent. I'd say the opposite.
Having your entire kit, means you can adapt to basically everything the game throws at you and the fact that it's randomised rewards you for mastering each weapon.
And yes, it kinda screws up Charge, but keep in mind that a charged shot already Deals more damage than almost all of the EX Attacks, so you should treat it more as just that, an EX Attack.
Skill is its own incentive, there is no better reward than the friends we lost in pursuit of perfection
Fun story with Ultrakill and me personally:
I have a processing imparment, which basically means my brain dosn't quite work as normal (kinda like dyslexia, but with more. I tell people that I'm basically 10 frames slower than everyone else).
I have issues with lots of skill based games, where if I don't have fun to begin with, I simply just don't have a good time (for example, DMC and Souls games are simular levels of hard on my brain, yet I have fun with DMC)
Ultrakill was rewarding enough to convince me to actually sit down and learn the game, to the point where I'm a somewhat compitant speedrunner, and slowly working my way through P-ranking all of act 1
thats awesome! Ultrakill just has something special going for it
fr, I legit had to learn insta rocket mount rewarding me with a higher cyber grind score due to the large amount of saves, pretty much solved my game mechanic issue
my favorite is oldschool runescape's bosses. There are so many bosses that seem impossible when you start that you can eventually kill them in your sleep, and the longer you kill them, the more little tricks you learn to make killing them slightly more efficient. You get slightly more perfect with every kill, and eventually you start doing things that you'd think were insane when you first started as if they're nothing. In addition to the regular drops, bosses also have a one in several thousands chance of dropping a pet, which keeps players motivated even when they're rich enough to not care about the loot, and there are special achievements for killing bosses in extremely challenging ways that only a handful of players have completed all of.
5:08 im playing ultrakill while watching this and as soon as you said ultrakill i got the ultrakill style combo
This topic reminds me of Terraria Calamity mod.
If you need any help in the server, the first response is "get gud"
if you're happy that you beat something bc you're new on the mod, it's just "now do it malice infernum eternity mode" (That's is, supposedly, the hardest you can get in a normal playthrough
The problem with getting rid of "skill issue" is, like you said with Path of Pain in Hollow Knight, people will find things too difficult/unfun and equate that to bad design. Recently in ULTRAKILL, the Whiplash (grapplehook) got nerfed due to being a low-skill, easy-to-rely-on catch all for the gameplay loop.
This lead to many people who overused it to become 'worse' at the game: unable to beat previously beatable situations. Some adapted and overcame, (in my opinion) having more fun and being more skilled with the game in its 'intended' way, whilst others complained about the change, so much so that the game dropped from 9th highest rated on steam to 10th.
The only real way to get people accept the new change is saying "skill issue" and "git gud", as that is legitimately the solution to the problem (although, perhaps a tad reductive). If left unsaid, then it only reinforces the idea that the nerf was bad design and that it should be reverted, despite it arguable fulfilling the game's major focuses: skill and fun.
There is an emotional fallacy that being good or bad at a game makes you a better or worse person. Related to this, there is another emotional attachment to the expression "git gud", which is literally what you need to do in order to pass certain skill challenges.
Yeah while it doesnt make someone better or worse as a person, if someone beats a challange I cant...they are better at than me at this topic.
And most skill challanges can only be beaten with skill, so the only response is "practice more."
Its like running races, if someone beats me, they are better at running, and the only advice they can give is "run faster" or "its not that hard actually if you keep trying."
@@carpedm9846 - agreed, yet many people take offense to the truth.
Everyone is better than me at video games, and I hate the fact that no matter how smart I am, or how skilled I am in the real world, I'll always be shit at every game I play.
@@pleasegoawaydude and there are people who cant play music or draw or what have you.
Theres no shame in going "ah yeah Im not that good at this" and still doing the thing.
I personally cant play music. Pianos especially have too many unmarked buttons that its wild to me that anyone could know what they are let alone figure it out precisely in the moment. But given the chance Ill still tap a 2 key rhythm in which I just go a-b-a-b-a-a-b. Its not good, but Im just fidgeting and having fun.
Similarly, games are, to have fun. You should pick a game you have fun playing and play that.
1:25 that transiotion GUH, juicy
ok this is kinda weird but, osu! is probably one of the most satisfying games to be good at, at least for me. the feeling of getting good at the game and beating hard levels is so satisfying. also having trouble with some maps and then coming back when you're better and seeing that it is way easier then before just makes you feel like a god!
(1:01) "Some people just wanna chill with a little terraria after a long day"
*Calamity Mod would like to know your location*
*Fargo's Souls would like to know your location*
Interesting. In my opinion, having story content locked behind some sort of difficulty spike is super annoying. As someone who has beaten the kh3 final mix bosses, I sympathize completely with people who looked it up online or just went to easy mode. Imo it is a negative on the games end for hiding story content behind harder endgame fights where I think it the rewards should be more cosmetic.
I think it depends what audience the developers are looking for. If a mario game had a special cutscene that only played when you do something perfectly, that would defeat the point of the game. However in a game like elden ring having a bunch of different convoluted and confusing to get endings is probably a good idea
@@icedragon9097 I think I see what you mean, but to me, the kind of players that 100% things or complete the hardest challenges would already be satisfied by the challenge itself and having conquered it. So I would think even the small special cutscene that plays for doing something super difficult would be enough for someone. As for the elden ring take, I haven't played the game, but having something special for doing each ending would be sick.
-bUt ULtrAKilliNG is NoT a rEal worD11!1!
-coin + death ray goes brrrrrrr
Git Gud. (you see, this is a funny and expected joke that works with the context of this video. Now laugh)
My favorite type of skill reward in games, is replayability. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice does this immaculately. There are two, stackable ways this game does this: Charmless and the Bell Demon.
After your first playthrough, at the start of each subsequent playthrough either at NG+ or a fresh save file, you have the item to get rid of a "new" item called "Kuro's Charm." Getting rid of this item does certain things (I think it increases enemy stats, but I'm not sure), but chief among them is enabling chip damage on imperfect blocks, which greatly adds pressure to play better.
Partway through each playthrough, at the end of a hidden side path, you can obtain the "Bell Demon." This makes the enemies hit twice as hard and have twice as much health, or close enough to not matter.
Grabbing both of these items at the beginning of each playthrough is how I enjoy my yearly-or-so replay of Sekiro. It's the easiest of the From games on a repeat playthrough, so this is essentially required if you don't want to just bulldoze through the game. I've played through the game twice now using both of these methods simultaneously, and each time is fantastic. When people say "it's not that hard, you just need to learn the moveset" they genuinely mean it.
There's also other things: hollow knight-esque boss rushes reward moves and cosmetics, and are excellent for the bragging rights in general.
The Touhou series usually rewards you with an extra stage if you beat the game without using continues.
Touhou is a bullet hell game which is fairly beginner friendly, but the extra stages and hard/lunatic is where the real difficulty is
The extra stages always feature some kind of unique mechanic for the boss, something you're not used to and something the "base mode" did not prepare you for, and it's amazing! Personally the extra stages are super fun
Touhou always rewards you for playing good with either more content, survival, power AND the visual effect
Touhou 18.5 literally is based upon playing good as it's more of a roguelike where you can choose certain items to start with
The game has a black market and a market
The black market lets you buy stuff during the 5min run and the market lets you buy permanent cards that you can later choose to start with them
If you are good at the game, you can choose not to spend anything on the black market and save money to buy these permanent cards but if you lose the run, you don't get any money. In any case, you can still buy the permanent cards if you bought stuff from the market, and the prices are adjusted for that. Now, if you're a tryhard completionist, you might aswell try and take the challenge and I love that. Please cover Touhou games someday! They're IMO peak game design in every way possible, but many people are scared of it because they see screenshots of the hardest difficulty and they thing the game is like that all the time
Team Fortress 2 is for sure in the same category as the games you mentioned here. Seeing my sheer improvement over the course of my time playing TF2 has been incredible. In only 500 hours i went from an idiot with no idea what i was doing to regularly pub stomping and carrying my team (I main medic)
Titanfall 2 even though it is a multiplayer game. This game has amazing movement and a number of extremely fun weapons. SMGs and ARs are objectively the strongest weapons in the game but good players rarely use them because getting kills with EPG or kraber while flying across the map at top speed is super satisfying. Players get to express their skill and mastery of movement and shooting mechanics of the game without turning it into a boring sweaty camping simulator.
Im something of a ultrakill guy myself
Heresy 1 has to be the best level in the game yet
@@Pogobro honestly yeah, but im sold over by Ship of fools, that music its fucking nuts
My experience with gaming is very different from everyone else's...
Basically, what playing a game is to me is failure -> punishment -> repeat until either I find out I'm a fool or I spend hours on it and give up
I have rarely ever actually improved in skill, and the way I beat a game now is usually not very different from the way I've beaten it for the first time, and I will always die a huge amount of times on the same boss.
I have never beaten any video game ever. I have gone through some emulated games with save states, but that does not count.
I truly do have an unsolvable skill issue. This is part of the reasons why I never actually play games ever.
This is literally the same, and I have long since given up on any difficulty above Easy/Very Easy. I just play rare singleplayer games with good stories now.
What comes to mind for me is Armored Core, if only because I've been playing their games recently. It's a game about building a giant mech and taking on missions as a mercenary in your giant mech. One notable feature is that ammo and repairs comes straight out of your wallet, so if you take too many damage and/or spend too much ammo, you'll lose more money than you gain from taking on the mission. This forces player to get good at the game so that they can earn enough money to buy new parts and weapons to try out and to think about how they want to play the game as they chose what to buy. And getting good at the game really makes you feel like this giant death machine and that you and your mech is an extension of oneself. At least that's how I feel. Did I mention that it was made by From Software?
I'm currently playing Spark the Electric Jester 3, and I've never felt a stronger need to 100% complete a game before. The gameplay loop swaps between speed, exploration, and combat in such a way that I don't get bored going through the same stage those 3-4 times to unlock the speed, score, and exploration medals.
“it gets kind of cringe”
(Uses Michael Scott reaction image)
Potbro
"P-ranking the game wasn't a test, it was a warning"
-Max0r
I got interested in to harder games that reward perfecting them by getting much better at Super Smash Brothers Melee which is the most rewarding game I have played because being able to beat players that used to beat you feels so good, and you can really see the improvement when you practice your tech skill one day and the next your noticeably better because of the work you put in
Ultrakill is on another level. One challange is to finish a level without touching water. The tricky part is that the level is AN UNDERWATER LEVEL.
And the solution to this challenge is hilarious.
the mission challenges are a great way to keep you playing as well!
@@Pogobro truly one in a million game.
We are not in a golden era of games. Also a games good or secret ending should never be locked behind a boss rush mode that is absurd. People play games like hollow Knight so that they can leave a negative review because its actually poorly designed and they went through the effort of beating the game so that they aren't given the but you didn't play it how would you know treatment. Not because it's not the kind of game for them. The white palace or whatever it's called is a super meat boy excursion when you've been playing a metroidvania the entire time. That is bad design period.
i do agree that ultrakill does a great job with this! i do have a bit of a Skill Issue, but ultrakill's gameplay is engaging enough - and the allure of a P-rank is strong enough - for me to keep coming back and trying to get a better rank, and i think i'm making some progress.
i think it helps that the "easy" difficulties have been rebranded to "accessible", and the "normal" difficulties to "hard", presumably to avoid shaming people who struggle with certain parts of gameplay. it allows players to just focus on playing the game in a way that's fun for _them,_ rather than feeling guilty about not being good enough to play at the intended difficulty, which actually allows them to learn the more complex mechanics at their own pace.
props to you by including a spoiler protection in the ultrakill section, I always see people praising the game while spoiling every single aspect of it, not letting newcomers discover fun things in it.
The ClaDun games have a "Fame" mechanic. For every second shaved from the stage record (including new personal bests) you get 1 Fame point.
Of course, you can bribe the system and buy Fame but it'll be forever be painted brown.
skill issue
Vermintide for me, especially the original one. It was such a skill based first person melee game. Yes there were upgraded weapons you could acquire over time but you needed to know how to use them, and otherwise there was no real levelling up. Mastering the weapons and gameplay set you miles apart from your companions, and rewarded you with that godlike feeling of being the sole survivor after your friends all perished, slaughtering your way to revive them.
I use the "skill issue" proudly when someone just says the game its bad because is hard
I mean, some games are really unfair and sacrifice fun in the game for the sake of hardness, good example is Boshi and all of his clones
@@gorilla_2282 but a lot of people use this argument to argue games like the soulsborne series are bad, while they are extremely fair.
@@gorilla_2282 I wanna be the guy and I wanne be the Boshi aren't sacrificing fun, they are catering to a different type of player. In a similar vein to Jump King and Getting Over it. The point is that it feels like the game is actively trying to stop you from progressing so that overcoming it feels that much better.
Completing celeste farewell will forever be one of the best moments in gaming for me
It's weird how "skill" is always a stand-in for "mechanical skill", when mechanical skill is the least skillful part of the playing toolkit. By that I mean that your reactions can barely be trained and basic pattern recognition and the building of muscle memory isn't anything special. In other words: When gatekeeping Gamers (tm) talk about skill, they talk about something that isn't that special to achieve but for some people simply unachievable. It's like running - running is very easy to learn and you can certainly improve, but your personal "skill" cap is pretty much hard determined by your genes.
Now compare that to strategical skill - your Paradox games, strategy in general, TRPGs and perhaps even SDV which you used as a casual game. Perfecting those games is much much harder than any soulslike, because there is virtually no cap on how good you can get. "Good" in this case means knowledgable, efficient, fast (not necessarily quick). Even the best SDV or strategy players will make obvious mistakes, because perfecting the game means juggling so many things at the same time, that a perfect player will not be perfect because they know everything and succeed at everything, but because they know how to recover and improvise in a highly complex situation. And the beauty of it is that your mortal coil limits your abilities very little. Sure, if you lack the computing power to analyze situations, you will have a harder time, but experience can make up for it.
And that's just the answer to the "skill issue". A game doesn't get hard because the developer wants it to be hard, a game gets hard by having so much to offer that while everyone can beat it, beating it in certain ways requires creative thinking and deep knowledge. That's why I routinely roll my eyes at games that are advertised as "difficult" - because that's just a cheap shortcut and poor excuse for actual difficulty.
DS Series, Doom Eternal and Hollow Knight are the only games soo far that i got soo engaged with due to the ways the difficulty was structured that i 100%'d them, including the hardest challenges in each.
One of the best games that awards perfection in my opinion is one that not many people have heard of but that I personally am very fond of myself. Juke's towers of hell is a 3D platforming game that somehow manages to have an incredibly low skill floor yet have a skill ceiling that even the best players haven't yet hit despite it being around since 2018. The prospect of the game is simple, there are various worlds with towers in them and it's your job to climb to the top of as many as you can beating harder and harder ones in the process. The main catch that makes this game so punishing and rewarding though is that there is not a single checkpoint in this game whatsoever, where you fall is where you land making completing these towers a rewarding test of a players consistency with the games movement mechanics. I've been playing it and slowly getting better since back when it first released and going through beating some of this games harder towers has been one of the most challenging yet rewarding things I've done in a video game. Would highly recommend checking it out if you're in for a challenging experience (would recommend watching a few tutorials if you struggle at the start though because I will admit the game can be somewhat esoteric to begin).
Celeste is another good game that provides a lot of gameplay and ways 'medals' you can receive, being the strawberries on every level
love Celeste! Havent tried mods yet
For me it's Jedi Fallen Order, (probably cause i'm a huge SW fan) but yeah doing perfect ultra instinct dodges, perfect parries and deflects made me feel like a fucking Jedi Master
I loved fallen order, cant wait to see more from Survivor!
Boneraiser Minions is a cool little game that basically gets better as you play it more with the unlocks. super fun for how dang cheap it is too. I think it's better than Vampire Survivors
Sword of the Stars: The Pit is probably my favorite roguelike
Dead cells also did what ultrakill did and lately added a new assist mode that even clarify the point of its not about make a hard grindy time for you as to make you challenge yourself the way that make it fun not frustrating
Ultrakill helped me alot in this, earlier, it took 5 minutes to turn my crosshair, now 1 second!
came here for ULTRAKILL, this game needs to get more popular
New Game+ is always a good incentive of increasing skill while rewarding more game, and DMC 5 (I have yet to play the others I’m sorry) does this amazingly with its MULTIPLE NG+cycles where every level is revamped with new enemy encounters, plus there is the Bloody Palace, a timed gauntlet of increasing challenge where you are rewarded depending on how skilled you are at completing layers both quickly and without taking damage
What is the game called at 8:11? I especially love how rewarding risk of rain 2 is after you finally gain more knowledge on items and enemies.
It's funny that gaming takes about 80% of my free time but I still suck almost at every hardcore game, it's enormous how much talent matters on this field
People constantly talk about how easy or approachable some game is, and I'll try it for hours at a time over the course of weeks and never improve.
pretty underrated. hope it blows up soon
thanks :) its okay if it doesn't, I dont make these specific videos for the views tbh
DMC5? Died to a few bosses and couldn't figure out Dante at all at the begining now the game is 100% Vergil included and Dante is now the one doing work.
How much did you enjoyed Act 2. For me it has some of the best tracks, visuals and level design. Lore is badass too
Personally, the reason I don't look up how to do stuff in some games is one: spoilers, and two: I shouldn't HAVE to look up how to do something in a game. If I can't think of any way past an obstacle, then I'll look it up. But I always feel bitter when I'm forced to do so.
Metroid Dread has such tight gameplay that I'm sad whenever I beat a boss. I just wish the fight would keep going.
Would it be weird to say rainworld? While it's not for everyone, I love the beautiful world and enigmatic lore and there is always something new to discover and do, but it is locked behind a wall made of anger and frustration from the aggression of practically every other living thing and the unwieldy controls ( I recommend NOT using a controller), requiring a bit of grinding and learning to truly start appreciating this gem.
While I greatly disagree with the general FPS take, I absolutely agree with both Ultrakill and will add Doom Eternal to that for similar reasons. These games reward you through in game mechanics. They are a power fantasy through your own player improvement, not just because the game says so. It's so, so satisfying.
I really really liked Ghostrunner. I love that you can get the Platinum trophy without having to play on a hard difficulty. Unlocking a harder difficulty after beating a game is always an awesome addition, especially when the levels or enemies are changed in some way. Not less health, more damage, less ammo, shit like that. A really good reward for skilled gameplay is a harder set up. Ghost runner did a really good job with that I believe.
I recently bought Ultrakill, the same day act 2 released actually, and it probably is my favorite shooter now
its SO good
@@Pogobro IKR??!?!?! I am loving it thoroughly even if my time is always shit, but that's because i explore a lot for the secrets in each level, that first secret mission spooked the shit out of me, i loved it.
Also the OST is fucking incredible and i can't get enough of it, imagine what this game will be like when it's finished, probably a masterpiece, although it already is that.
@@Hopper_Arts yeah my first run through of levels was usually 20 minutes cause I secret hunt etc
@@Pogobro same, mine usually are 10+ min, but after i'm done playing the levels casually, i'm going all in for the perfects.
I'd games that reward you for mastery heavily are Ultrakill, Celeste, Godhand, Spelunky 1 and 2 (2 especially) and any fighting game really.
Eh... The problem is that far too many people don't want to learn how to play challenging games, but then want to complain that they are challenging. Let's be honest, some people who play games these days aren't in it for the challenge, but still want to play the games that become popular in the gaming community. What games become popular? Challenging ones, cause "gamers' like challenge. This is why they take offense at the "get good" lines, because they don't want to get good, they want to play the game, despite it not being a game they enjoy.
I really don't want to learn challenging games, no. Because I've already earned the right to say I shouldn't have to work to have fun anymore. I've been shit at games for years, and I've kept pushing and trying to learn and getting absolutely nowhere and I'm tired. I hate the fact that I have no option but to either fail repeatedly and just not get anywhere, or to play on easy and feel depressed.
I would like to add Furi to the list of these types of games. Unsurprisingly, its hard, and the Furier difficulty only makes it harder. But each fight is so expertly crafted and geneuinely fun that despite all the odds, it never feels completely unfair for the player.
*clears throat* (I actually cleared my throat in real life)
Terraria is not a game one could chill out to. In fact, even classic mode can cause much pain even to seasoned gamers. Not to mention expert and master, as well as secret seeds such as for the worthy, the constant, and not the bees. Terraria is just as difficult as a gam like cuphead and hollow knight, although not many have realized this due to their focus on the games the community calls hard.
Alternatively it might be that I was playing on an iPad mini
Whoa whoa, what's the game at 8:11? I've never seen such a smooth and clean looking action game with pixel art of that quality before.
dark souls is THE MOST (imo) satisfying game in existence. beating any boss or hard enemy on the first try is incredible, and some of them mechanics require frame-perfect timing
So my opinion on the "Skill issue" is i prefer a game that doesnt block you off when you dont perform well, but rewards you when you do. Using Ultrakill as the example, the only thing locked behind playing perfectly is the P door. Progression can be done with a moderate amount of skill, Weapon skins are unlocked via orbs or money, Secret Missions and alt weapons are unlocked via exploration and so on. The P doors are the only content hard locked behind playing perfectly so someone who struggles with filling out the p ranks only misses a minor fraction of content. That being said there is another thing ultrakill does. Those grades at the end of level almost taunt you to do better.
Enter the Gundgeon health reward for no damage *DOES punish* who play worse or can't be super pro.
It's not designed equally among the players of all skills. Who do you think need hp more? Those who struggle and learning the game or try hards who steam roll the game? *More hp allows for more mistakes to be made, which IS NEEDED for less skilled* . There is no single reason to hide such crucial stat and give it to someone who has less problem. The binding of Isaac for not taking red heart damage reward with weapons and utility items, but hp item are always dropped from boss, regardless if you took damage or not.
Counterpoint, the master rounds are primarily not a health upgrade, but game rewards used for achievements and upgrades. The health upgrade part is just to make it not useless.
And its not a crucial upgrade, the overall benefit of making your max hp 8 instead of 6 is rather negligible.
Not getting a reward is not punishment the way I see it.
"Some people just wanna chill with a little terraria after a long day"
I spent almost 7 hours just to kill a single cosmic worm, a fire chicken that probably cause most of the world forest fire on malice, my mentality is just broken
“Some people just wanna chill with a little terraria after a long day” - Me about to go and kill 15 different god like beings and then get killed by a random boulder
to me the game that puch me masteringg it is league
no not the ranking , a bit of the mastery system , but when u do "the moove" whetever u are gold , iron or grandmaster it feel so good
Celeste does it phenomenally. You beat the level, you are rewarded with a more challenging version of the level. Assist mode prevents casual players from hating the game, collectibles that are fun to find and collect. And finally, the sheer confidence of all of farewell, a level that takes 4-5 hours to beat the first time, thousands of deaths, and still provides story. Not to mention golden berries that give a visual reward for beating a level deathless. Celeste and ultrakill are easily my top 2 games of all time
ultrakill in thumbnail (i have to watch)
What was the point of your premise? That being elitist is a bad thing. But following up with examples of mastering game mechanics is fun and rewarding.
I'm not that good with FPSes but I'm curious enough to try Ultrakill after this video
(tbf I enjoyed Doom 2016 so i think its kind of up my alley)
i dont like style metters because they reward certain playstyles while not others even if they are totally viable. Today i played ultrakill cybergrind the whole day using railcannon screw thing and then i learned from youtube thag it doesnt give you any style. I like DOOM Eternal because instead of the game measuring how well ur doing u can play however u want and as long as you win its a good playstyle.
In DOOM Eternal you dont have to do anything to be able to play the dlc (except pay lmao) but you have to learn all mechanics if you want to beat it.
I think Just Shapes and Beats is rewarding. You can unlock new songs if you are good at playing so there's that. The game doesn't punish you for failing and it even has an easy mode in which the message has a more "Too hard? Well, press this and have fun" energy rather than feeling insulting. The developers really wanted the game to be enjoyable and not an elitist cult
Edit: Human Fall Flat is also VERY rewarding when you're good at it. Heck, you're even allowed to think out of the box to circumvent a puzzle you don't know how to do.
So, even if you can't think of the "intended" solution, you can just say "screw it" and make your own. The game will never punish you for being creative. And while I know this isn't "mastering the game" the game still rewards you for thinking, regardless if it was the way they intended or not!
Risk of Rain 2 is less rewarding but it gives you a second skin for you characters and a mastery achievement if you beat the game on monsoon (the hardest difficulty)
I’ve only done it with one character, but I have to say it looks way cooler than the original
(Also for clarification it’s the only other skin than the original, which makes it more valuable as it’s 1/2 instead of 1/20 or something)