Yesterday I read an interesting article on Kotaku about difficulty in video games, and I thought I'd share my two-cents on it.

Follow up:

I love video games, I didn't always. I didn't start liking video games until I started playing Pokemon when I was 11. And even today I am incredibly nitpicky about the games I play. I own probably close to 100 video games, over the span of about 8 systems, and of all the games I've played, I've completed 4: Kingdom Hearts, Kingdom Hearts 2, Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 and Hey You! Pikachu. This is because I get very easily discouraged or bored when playing a game.

So this is my view of video games: the game should be balanced that I shouldn't have to do something more than maybe four times in order to figure out how to win, and my winning/losing shouldn't be exclusively reliant on my reflexes, and minor mistakes shouldn't constitute failing. This is why I hate sidescrollers, it is far too easy to die, and it's frustrating that even if you know exactly what to do if you mess up you have to start over again.

There shouldn't be too huge a discrepancy between the level of the monsters around an area and the boss of the area. And as I advance through the game there shouldn't be any dramatic spikes. One thing I hate about RPGs is that when you try to fight the final boss it takes you three weeks of boring fights with weak monsters to finally level up to a point where you actually have a shot at winning. I try to progress through the story as quickly as possible, so I usually don't spend a lot of time leveling up in the middle of the game. No matter how great the game, this is a CONSTANT plague in RPGs.

I view video games as almost interactive movies, I get very involved with the plot and characters, so these are paramount to me. I'll play a game with iffy mechanics if the storyline is really good, but I'll ditch a so-called 'fun' game if I hate the story or dislike the characters. Of course, if a game has *too* many cut scenes, and not enough play I won't play it either.