ISRIERI'S PROFILE

I feel guilty for voting for Cliffside and not Pampers. I figured that since we're editing stuff Cliffside could be easily fixable, but now Pampers seems like it would've been the better level with some fixes to it. Oh well.

author=halibabica
One reason for this is that I want to avoid making anything completely new for this project, since it's supposed to be a compilation from other compilations.

If there's one thing I find no shame in adding, it would be a new world map. I'm fine with rehashing the RMN2 map, but you shouldn't feel restricted by it. I imagine most people would expect a new world map anyway.

I don't like the idea of including the old hubs because all they'll do is remind people of the old games. I thought we were trying to avoid bad memories.

author=halibabica
please test and slap me if I'm stupid.

I should reiterate I'm still not a fan of Fortress of Doom. It goes on too long, and we've only got one checkpoint. Link pretty much does what Luigi already does if you unlock him. Link's room is no fun. And the pre-big Eli phase takes too long and is major ass. I'm incredibly impressed with the level as a whole though. It's clear you went to a lot of trouble to make it. It's also probably the only level we've got that's an appropriate last level. If we want to have a 50 star limit, then the 21 stars in the Fortress of Doom would have to go too, for the record. But one thing that bugs me in the fortress:

And a pat on the back for apa649, D-Bones, Gigabowser, Ratty524, seiromem, and uh. Your levels are okay, too.

*slap* I find that a very rude thing to say in-game. That whole spiel is also the last thing anybody would want to hear after beating the level.

Why do I love video games? Enemies. The enemies you fight are the meat of the game. I love to appreciate the intricacies of certain encounters, the ingenuous patterns enemies have and how they can so easily trip you up if you aren't on the ball. How you can take an otherwise uninteresting boss and make it a fight for your life with the right combination of attacking and defending. What are your favorites? But most importantly why? What makes them so much fun, that if you had to fight them again and again you wouldn't get tired of it?

This topic isn't specific to RPGs: Any genre of game is fair territory.


EARTHBOUND- Final Starman: Specifically I like a certain enemy combination that you fight at the end of the game: The eponymous Final Starman, a Nuclear Reactor Robot, and a Ghost of Starman. Combined they fall into the roles of a Mage, Healer, and Glass Cannon. If you've played the game you already know where I'm going, but for those who haven't it's one of them most devious enemy combinations that exist.

The Ghost of Starman always opens with a devastating magic attack that hits all allies and is almost guaranteed to kill three of your four, but the move has a 3-4 turn cooldown before it can fire again. The Final Starman can use this same move, but can use it whenever it wants, in addition to a fearsome array of other skills. Including reviving allies, casting a shield that reflects physical damage, and confusing your entire party. If that weren't enough, it has an additional shield that reflects magic already applied at the beginning of every encounter with one. The Reactor Robot further complicates matters by constantly healing it's allies to full health almost every round, and exploding when it is killed, heavily damaging your party.

Alone, these enemies wouldn't be too much of a threat. It's when they combine their forces that they become nothing short of overwhelming. But it's the Final Starman that provides the lynchpin to a surprisingly intricate fight. Even if you play your cards right and dispatch them as efficiently as possible, the battle can still take a toll on your party.

DRAGON WARRIOR III - Baramos: I think this guy is really underrated. The big thing is that when you fight him, you aren't ideally equipped to deal with him. A lot of the spells that would really be useful in the fight against him you don't learn until much later levels. Therefore when you first encounter him like I did, with as minimal grinding as you can get away with, it's really a shock to fight a boss who's that difficult.

I believe he has a fixed attack pattern, and a chance to attack twice per round. It's not significant in this fight because nothing is done with it save as a way to mix the moves up a bit. But I still find it kind of intriguing. It's possible to follow the pattern of moves he uses and predict what's coming next. But because he has a chance of attacking twice per round it can mix up that pattern and throw out another move you weren't expecting. He also regenerates HP every round instead of just having a lot of it. That's something I really wish people would do more often: it means you can't just sit on your thumbs for the whole battle and waste time healing people up.

This means that the fight is VERY close to the wire if you get to him as soon as you can. It's basically just a battle of attrition, kinda boring on a technical aspect. But the situation the fight presents is as tense as can be. I had a harder time with this guy than Zeromus in Final Fantasy IV: The first time I beat Baramos it felt like victory.

FINAL FANTASY IV - Behemoth: This is when I really started to appreciate counter-attacking in RPGs. When I first fought one of these guys, I thought that I simply wasn't fast enough, and assumed that it's speed was ridiculously high to allow it so many turns! It turned out he's programmed to counter physical attacks with a strong one of his own. I was under-leveled when I first got to this part of the game, so they were tough but memorable for me. It's a very simple enemy trait, but simplicity is not a bad thing.

MOTHER 3 - Mr. Passion/Sir Passion: Mother 3 brought a new mechanic to their battles. Comboing. You could perform combo attacks by pressing the button in unison with the beat of the battle music. So what must be an inevitable product of that? A ghostly boss that plays classical music! The battle music is made up of several famous compositions, and with varying tempos to boot. This means that you can actually screw up a combo attack because of shifts in the music.

It's not in place to make the battle more difficult. I think that it's there so that when you learn you can combo through these shifts in tempo, you'll feel on top of the world when you finally manage to do so. I also like this guy because of the varying attack descriptions prevalent throughout the Mother series. It really brings a new level of character to all the enemies in the game, and this guy is no exception. One of his attacks is to throw "everything but the kitchen sink!" and another is to "throw the kitchen sink!" Best of all, all the objects he can throw are visible in the room before you fight him.

SUPER MARIO BROS. - Hammer Bros: I just love these things. First, who came up with anthropomorphic turtles that throw hammers? "Someone awesome" is the answer. People remember these guys as one of the more difficult enemies in the game. They constantly throw their hammers in an arc. The constant throwing forms a barrier that breaks up the pacing of the level, in order to get past them you have to take your time and find an opening. Either waiting for them to hop to positions to safer positions on the block structures, or when there are no other routes to find that elusive pause when they stop throwing their hammers. But the arc pattern, in addition to their constant bobbing back and forth and hopping means that the hammers are also really tough to predict. Due to Mario's need to get momentum going before he starts running at a full tilt, it always feels like a gamble whenever you try and make a run for it. There's just enough predictability combined with an element of randomness. And then there's the one on the stairs. Screw that one.

SUPER GHOULS N' GHOSTS - Red Arremer: Dear lord. If you've not played this game you just can't understand. The Red Arremer is the most evil and sadistic enemy to ever appear in a video game. Not necessarily because of it's difficulty but because it taunts you by it's demeanor and methods of attacking. It will sit and wait for you to either approach it or attack, where it takes to the air and the fight for your life begins.

The Red Arremer has 5 actions it can perform.
-A swooping attack where it marks the player's position, and moves in a parabola arc.
-The above move twice in a row.
-Shoot a fireball that heads straight for your position.
-Summon imp minions and send them straight for you.
-Lands on the ground and begins dancing back and forth in an extremely asinine way. I see it as mocking the player's running animation. It will sometimes get a burst of speed and run right into you.

Combine all of that with an uncanny ability to dodge: It is almost regardless of how far away you are from it, it will deftly move out of the way of nearly all your shots. The only time you can hit it is if you anticipate the direction it will dodge and compensate by attacking slightly toward that spot, or hit it when it's swooping at you.

This would not necessarily be that hard in any other game. But in Ghouls n' Ghosts you are only able to take a single hit: The second one kills you. And you can only jump in a predetermined arc. The controls aren't the problem, its that the Red Arremer is the perfect counter to your control scheme. The parabola arc will nearly always hit you if you don't learn it's timing and jump at the right moment, in the right direction, at the right distance. Nevermind attacking the thing. The double-swoop...I still don't know how to avoid that one. At that point, the parabola basically turns into an angle: He can attack you almost anywhere, even in the air or on the ground. I am not exaggerating when I say that this one enemy is harder than any of the bosses in the game. Yet I love this guy. More than any enemy in the game, this one really makes you sweat. And when you beat it you know that whatever the game throws at you afterward is now a moot point. If you beat a Red Arremer you deserve a medal. I can respect an enemy who puts up a fierce opposition.

I'm sure there's another thread like this somewhere but whatever.

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author=Ciel
Traditional 'video games' without an extreme level of difficulty are pointless.

I think what he's getting at is that difficulty is the main draw of more classic games. Traditional meaning more skill based games that aren't really anything more than an excuse plot and GO GO GO! Hence the "extreme" difficulty/challenge primarily being where most of one's enjoyment comes from.

author=Feldschlacht IV
I enjoy titles like Symphony of the Night, Xenogears, Valkyria Chronicles, and a few other games for reasons other than difficulty.

Whereas games like these have more going for it than just the gameplay. They've got story, atmosphere, and characters. I like Paper Mario and Earthbound, and those aren't really all that difficult. In those games the challenge isn't the main focus when you're playing. It's mainly the characters and dialogue in my case.

Personally I find that high-difficulty/high-level gameplay works best when it isn't an RPG. But rather platformers or other action games. That's not to say that it wouldn't work in classic RPGs. But two of the reasons I like hard games are the feeling of accomplishment when you make progress simply put. In addition to how immersive I personally find such games to be.

Take Contra. Contra is hard. But Contra has great game feel. The whole point of the game seems to put you in the shoes of a Schwarzenegger hero. The most badass action dude who ever lived, and the game reflects that in the obstacles you face. But it also does something else: it makes it hard as shit so you also feel a load of tension as you play the game. Have any of you seen Contra III? The stuff that goes on in that game? Its so ridiculous it's ridiculously awesome. The stuff the game demands of you is nothing sort of outrageous. But the way I see it, that's all part of the package the game offers up.

It doesn't hand you the action hero feeling. You have to work for it. As said above, hard games make you adjust yourself and your play-style in order to master the game. The whole point of having a challenge is in the way you overcome it. In doing so you feel accomplished because it wasn't handed to you and the game devs didn't cater toward you ineptitude (a personal pet peeve). Contra is responsible! It knows if it just hands you victory you'll quickly grow bored of it cause you didn't earn it. When you have to claw your way to victory through hordes of god-knows-why-it-exists and actually feel the tension of the consequences of losing. Then you'll savor victory all the more and value each successive one. Zero Punctuation reference.

Ghouls n' Ghosts is another game series I really like for similar reasons. The game is very easy to pick up and play. But god damn if it isn't hard to master. The very simple controls and very simple stage design belay how diabolical the enemies are. It's all about their placement or attributes of each enemy. But I think the real reason I like the games is because they're openly mocking and condescending toward you. No modern games would have the balls to do so. It's possible to have your knight character turned into a woman or baby. A certain demon enemy taunts you into hitting it before dodging and kicking your ass.

But that's all to produce that feeling of accomplishment. The game throws everything it can at you (and in some cases even cheap shots you), and when you finally do beat a level it's like flipping the bird to the game devs. That you've accomplished the impossible. It's great. And at least in my case, you wouldn't really call the game you're playing unfair: Just that you aren't good enough to beat it...yet. That's a tricky aspect of difficulty that such beloved hard games like Contra and Dark Souls need to nail. To put up a fierce opposition without just outright killing the player in a spiteful way. It has to ultimately be up to you to succeed, but it also must be you who fails and not the game killing you just because.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's harder to emulate that same experience in an RPG because it's less skill based and more strategy based. You have to treat it more like a puzzle than as a battle to the death. I imagine that if you wanted to really make a difficult RPG that provided a challenge it would require keeping the player on the defensive at all times. Rather than encouraging the player to go all out and shower the enemy with constant attacking other skills (primarily augmentative or defensive ones) need to be made useful. If each move the player makes carries significant consequences for screwing up, then when he makes a truly good move or has a good streak of luck, he'll feel as though he sufficiently outsmarted the opposition. But that brings in the grind aspect of it. If you constantly are put up against even the most ingenious of encounters, the strategy is still rinse and repeat once you figure out the most optimal solution of dispatching them. You could say the same of action games like Contra, but I still posit that the feeling isn't quite the same.