'How hard is too hard?' In my opinion, if I'm dying and having to constantly restart levels/checkpoints throughout, then a game is too difficult. Games should start easy and become more difficult as you progress. If I'm playing a game that's just plain difficult at the beginning (assuming it's not due to controls or my not understanding the objectives, etc) and continues to force me to reload checkpoints/levels than I'm not going to be playing it very long. At the same time, I like that kind of difficulty late in a game so after I do finish it, there's a sense of accomplishment.

what is too hard. personally, it's a matter of where the difficulty lies. If it's a difficult due to shoddy controls, then it makes me quite angry and annoyed. which makes the game on the non-enjoyable side.

the only real kind of difficultly that I feel is appropriate is the kind that can be overcome. yes, that sounds silly, but humor me. I'm sure many of you played a little game called ikaruga for gamecube. if you haven't, shame on you, go and play it. well, that game is insanely difficult. but it becomes easier as it's played. the difficulty is always there, but the difficulty comes from the users ability to adapt to the games mechanics. The better versed a player in the game, the more adept the player is at playing.

The game is still difficult, but it's enjoyable.

The other side of the spectrum is the god aweful difficulties that are difficult just for difficulties sake. The ones that are just there so the game designers can pat themselves on the back for making a game "hard". The game mechanics can be mastered and it can still hand you your ass on a platter. difficulty that relies on luck of the player and pure endurance is not fun.

a difficulty that can be overcome through playing the game while having fun playing=win
a difficulty that is overwhelming despite mastery of the game mechanics=lose

shatnershaman:

Dody16:

But I'm willing to take a video game "challenge" any day.

Yea its not meant to be taken literally but you want challenge try Halo 3 legendary all skulls on. If you can beat the campaign you'll be one of three.

Is that even possible? With blackeye and famine and all that shit. I mean its not like halo 2 where you can take some cool shortcuts (btw, halo has the best level design ever if you look closely) Personally, i only think its to hard, if i can't beat it after 12 hours of trying(like a single level). I know its not really a good standard, but if it takes that long, then i lose

If a game is too hard from the off I can find that off putting. Similarly if I complete a game and it's not really a challenge I will be disappointed. I can forgive a games great challenge as well if there are lots of game modes that can dstract me within a game.

Examples:
Mario Galaxy was great from start to finish but when I had everything done and dusted, I just wished there was a rock hard thumb blisteringly frustrating bit to keep coming back to.

The sky dive level on veteran in COD4 is impossible, but there was a good number of hours it took to get me to that point, and the multiplayer is still ace so I can happily admit defeat.

Other thoughts:
I think in the age of good save systems, guides online, youtube, etc. any really hard games can be overcome by most people if you put the work in. It's not like back in the NES days when you worked your arse off trying to complete a level only to lose your last life and lose 2 or 3 hours work. When you hit a brick wall in todays age it's not such a big deal.

For me, no game is too hard, just incredibly frustrating :D

I have a pretty good level of patience things, and I'll just keep plugging away at something until it's done. This could take 5 deaths, it could take 100 deaths, but I know that eventually I'll do it, and when I do the feeling will be great.

But I'd probably say games are too hard when you stop near the beginning of a game because of repeated dying (and not because you're unfamiliar with the game), or when you play through a game once, and never want to do so again.

OurGloriousLeader:
Depends on why it's had. [b]Devil May Cry, for example, is rock hard, especially the third one[b], but it's hard for the right reasons. It's always your own fault.
That's too hard.

So its not only me who spent too much time to count completing it?

Too Hard? I Wanna Be The Guy. It's the sort of "memorize this shit or you die instantly" kind of hard. First you need to dodge falling apples from trees that kill you if they touch you. Then, once you've gotten past the trees and onto a high platform, you have to jump back over the trees. The apples that are remaining will FALL UP and kill you. Reflexes and skill alone are good for nothing.

I also hate times when dying at one hard part takes you way too far back, and then you have to redo a bunch of crap that isn't even hard. I like Mega Man's difficulty. The bosses are tough, but you start off each level with 3 lives, the levels are relatively short, and you have infinite continues.

Duck Sandwich:
Too Hard? I Wanna Be The Guy. It's the sort of "memorize this shit or you die instantly" kind of hard. First you need to dodge falling apples from trees that kill you if they touch you. Then, once you've gotten past the trees and onto a high platform, you have to jump back over the trees. The apples that are remaining will FALL UP and kill you. Reflexes and skill alone are good for nothing.

I also hate times when dying at one hard part takes you way too far back, and then you have to redo a bunch of crap that isn't even hard. I like Mega Man's difficulty. The bosses are tough, but you start off each level with 3 lives, the levels are relatively short, and you have infinite continues.

Haha I Wanna Be The Guy, so much frustration, so much cursing.

huntedannoyed:
This sounds like Ninja Gaiden frustration. If it's too hard now, take a break for a while and try it again latter when you think that you may have a few more tricks up your sleeve.

No, it's a bit more than frustration.

Team Ninja deliberately amped up the difficulty of Ninja Gaiden, and admitted to doing as such. They only allowed a lower difficulty level on the later re-releases of the game [Black and Sigma], and in Black you had to die to get to the 'easy' difficulty. The developers liked to make the game challenging, but it's far too challenging for your average gamer.

I could beat it if I wanted to, but I'd have to restart the game a third time which I'm not willing to do. A game in which you'll inevitably have to restart the game, unless you consort with GameFaqs or other strategy guides which I dislike using, more than once in order to finish it isn't looking at a good difficulty curve. Challenging the players is one thing, but drowning most of the players in difficulty is another thing entirely.

The difficulty curve for Ninja Gaiden would best be diagrammed as a cliff, really.

You think the remake is hard, stay the hell away from the NES Ninja Gaiden. There are gamers who have been trying to beat that game off and on for 19 years and still haven't succeeded.

On-topic, if a game is hard because of bad design choices like crappy controls, delayed jumping or bad camera angles, it is too hard. If a game is cheap (for prime examples, every entry under these two links: The Computer is a Cheating Bastard and SNK Boss Syndrome ) it is too hard. Otherwise, I'm usually fine with difficulty, because I feel proud of myself for victoly!

Nintendo Hard is too hard. Oh, and COD4 on Veteran is a bitch. It can be finished, but it's a pain. But I'm glad I was able to finish it, and proud of it... though I haven't tried Ninja Gaiden.

ninja gaiden II, its super hard. Now someone is gonna reply, "you suck" or something like that. But seriosly its freaking hard...

I thought Crysis and Farcry wanted to bite my motherfucking fingers off at some points. Don't worry, though. There's always somebody that "flew by crysis on delta, and then i had a cigarette. i am soooooo good srsly" to condemn you as some sort of new FPS player.

OnlyWonderBoy:

Duck Sandwich:
Too Hard? I Wanna Be The Guy. It's the sort of "memorize this shit or you die instantly" kind of hard. First you need to dodge falling apples from trees that kill you if they touch you. Then, once you've gotten past the trees and onto a high platform, you have to jump back over the trees. The apples that are remaining will FALL UP and kill you. Reflexes and skill alone are good for nothing.

I also hate times when dying at one hard part takes you way too far back, and then you have to redo a bunch of crap that isn't even hard. I like Mega Man's difficulty. The bosses are tough, but you start off each level with 3 lives, the levels are relatively short, and you have infinite continues.

Haha I Wanna Be The Guy, so much frustration, so much cursing.

I'm amazed that anyone had made it that far without mentioning I Wanna Be The Guy.
On the other hand, the whole point of the game is to be 'SO GODDAMN HARD'. So maybe dissing it for being too hard is wrong.

For... normal... games, the TVTropes on "The Computer is a Cheating Bastard" sums it up nicely.

COD 4: The TV station pissed me off more than the ending of "One Shot, One Kill". Why? Respawning enemies. Watching endless streams of enemies pour out of a room the size of a goddamn closet sets off the bullshit alarms more than watching streams of them come hungering for blood from behind buildings and airlifted in. I never even tried for Mile High Club yet.

Sethran:
[quote=huntedannoyed]Challenging the players is one thing, but drowning most of the players in difficulty is another thing entirely.

Ninja Gaiden II is a game for people who want to play a hard game. Turning the difficulty down until it's as piss easy as most games today just so that everybody can beat it would be like removing the story from an RPG because a lot of gamers don't like dealing with dialog trees.

It varies with different games. COD 4, for example is perfect because you don't have to play on veteran and if you do, it's skill that will determine your survival. Also for those that want to, can just play on recruit. Everyone is happy. Ninja Gaiden 2 on the other hand (from what I've been hearing) is so frustratingly hard that people stop playing it. Now that's is just cheap.

Shinobi for the PS2. Basically, the only way the game "challenged" me was to throw me up against mobs of enemies that could block every attack except for the right moment, when you had a split-second to do something or you'd take a wakizashi to the throat. That's too hard. When a game basically can't challenge you in any way other than saying "OK, this enemy is absolutely impossible to damage except right before his attack, at which point you press X to hurt him, or else he takes away half your life bar." Sure, some people may argue "reflexes" or "learning curve," but every game, in my opinion, ought to be able to challenge you without tossing invulnerable badguys out of the walls.

"EDIT: Oh yeah, I almost forgot. This recharging health bullshit has to stop"

I love regenerating health; I've always found that when you have a health pickup, that all too often you're dead before you know it because you HAVE to take damage to get more health.

Catch 22 much?

In any case, difficulty relies heavily on the genre. A FPS is easier to make a difficult game without cheating than a RTS...but there's still no excuse for games that are jaw dropingly easy due to bad AI.

I like my games easy-medium. Enough so that I can continue the action unhindered, but not so that it's a breeze.

Personally, if I find it hopeless, then it's too hard. If I feel like I could win if I tried again and did it a different way, that's hard enough.

People have mentioned Call of Duty 4 being too hard, and it was pretty damn challenging in places, but I loved "No fighting in the War Room" because it was just hard enough. I died tons, but every time I thought "If I use the grenade launcher, I should win this time" or "If I run through as quickly as possible, I should win this time" or something like that.

as far as too hard games go, I have just generally given up on them entirely, and will never look back. Those games being Prince of Persia 2, the final boss battle is retarded hard that 20 attempts later and still no headway. Also, the final boss battle on expert in guitar hero 3, I barely passed slayer after about 400 attempts, only to find something even more hard to beat. Those are the only 2 games i have ever not finished in my life, but it is too frustrating to come to the end of game and find the learning/talent curve to not fit to the trend of the rest of the game.

I enjoy a challange, but it seems that every game that comes out nowadays demands that you play on "Crush your spirit, throw your controller, never play game again" diffaculty in order to feel like you accomplished something, the worst offender of this is GH3

shatnershaman:
There isn't such thing. No matter how hard it is you can always cheat/mod/hack.

ROBOTT!!! :)

I'm not sure a game can ever be too hard. As long as a game has a certain number of difficulty levels suitable for all potential players, then there is nothing wrong with putting a crazily hard mode for the players who choose to play it.

But if there isn't multiple difficulty levels and the game is Ninja-Gaiden like in it's gameplay, that's where you run into a problem.

Personally, I enjoy hard difficulty modes because of the extra replay value it provides. I'm fighting my way through RE4 Wii Edition on Professional mode and am really enjoying the difficulty of it. It depends on how you like your games.

good examples of games that are to hard or stuff in games that are to hard is Mike Tyson in Mike Tyson's Punchout on the NES, or Battletoads on the NES, those are fucking brutal

Any bit past the fifth level on MK2. I tried playing it yesterday and my megadrive barely survived the experience.

A bad example of being hard is IMO Burnout Paradise. I'm starting to play it again and now i remember why i put it down in the first place. The car's ass takes up most of your screen and the camera swivels around no matter where you want it to point, the map reading is horrible causing me to turn at a turn i didn't want to turn at, and on top of it all if you hit a car with even the slightest bump with your strongest car you have you crash and burn everywhere and the game takes the controls away from you for 10 seconds. It's a good game, but the flaws it has are just so frustrating that i don't know how i'll ever get 100% completion if it's even possible!

A good example IMHO of hard difficulty but still possible is MGS4. If you find yourself dieing on Big Boss Extreme mode a lot, just calm down and be patient and figure out your situation (assuming you're not trying to get the Big Boss Emblem). Since the game is all about patience and stealth, you're going to have to be patient and stealthy if you're going to succeed.

The first Ninja Gaiden game. Much harder than the second due to the fact that your health bar does not replenish itself a little bit after every fight. And pretty much all of the weapons were rubbish except the starting sword and the Vigorian flail....maybe that one was just funny more than useful, but whatever.

nightfish:
Theres always a way to do things without cheating. Once you cheat whats the point, you've just ruined your experience of a game.

Well, that depends, there are some games where I have decided I just want to know how the story pans out, so I have gone into God mode, or just jumped levels to see how things end. When I finish them though, I have never claimed to have played them, in the same way that others have who have played and not cheated.

Other times when I have cheated it has been in games I have already finished, and I just want to reach a certain point to play from, like jumping to a chapter in a book you have already read. I've done this with Jedi Knight and Outcast - finished both games, and then wanted to start again, but with the light sabre so I have either cheated by granting myself the weapon ahead of the game, or by jumping to the level where it is given to me.

Anything with cheap difficulty or when the computer or game cheats is to hard, if it's actually a well polished challenge that's difficult it's all good. I.E Ikaruga hard but not cheap