Topic: Star Fox Zero - OT

I remember when "Nintendo-hard" was a thing...

@Dezzy: I grouped Dark Souls and Star Fox together because they're videogames, just as I'd group any videogames together because the point is that having ways for 'noobs' to enjoy games is a good thing, regardless of the game's genre or how it was sold. The only counter argument against this is exclusion, that idea that it is repulsive that me as a terrible Souls player can enjoy playing it on easy mode. That is a very bad thing indeed for some people. Somehow.

You stil get Dark Souls as brutally difficulty as ever, and the community can (and will obviously) play exclusively on the 'how it's meant to be played' normal mode, but the fact that I (and I'm sure a huge many other people) am having to have NO other options than a) skip the game, or b) git gud? That is bad. There is a bloody obvious 'c)' option that should be there for people like me, an easy mode, and if it was there then I'd be much, much more likely to get the game and potentially become a Souls fan.

But I can't. And that's a good thing innit? Excluding people, I'm sure we all learned when we were like 4/5 years old how that is viewed. Yet videogames- somehow- at times not only allow it, they embrace it.

It's just bizzare.

EDIT: I also agree with Jim that Bandai Namco's marketing of this game does it more harm than good in the long run. Even I can tell from the little I've played of Bloodborne and the even less time I've spent on Dark Souls that From Software are great developers, and BN with their 'prepare to die' marketing slogan have done them a disservice, as people like me who don't want to spend 5 hours dying on the first level barley making any progress are immediately alienated even before we've played the game. People should be able to toggle the difficulty in FS games so that everyone gets to see how good devs they are, not just the selected and worthy few.

And for the record as much as I'm saying that I would like harder games to be more accessible, because I'm not very good at videogames despite playing them a lot, ultimately the decision should be made exclusively by the developers of any given game. The key point here is that should we be outraged if/when Dark Souls 4 has an optional easy mode or even an invincible mode?

Of course we shouldn't.

@DefHalan:
I did make the distinction quite clear. I'm not saying there are no people complaining about it. I haven't checked but I would absolutely believe that some people are outraged at the idea in the case of Dark Souls.
I was just skeptical that that many people really cared with Star Fox. I think Jim just deliberately overexaggerated it for the sake of revisiting an old argument (hence why he provided so little evidence of said outrage).

As for why it would be a problem with Dark Souls. As I said previously, Dark Souls creates a community based on a shared struggle. The online multiplayer aspects definitely help with that (unlike in most Nintendo games) I think that's why it has such a devoted and passionate fanbase. It feels like you're part of an exclusive club where the passwords for entry are just being able to recount your experience with some of the tougher bosses.
You can certainly dislike the elitist mindset in people if you want. But that doesn't just make it go away.

@Dezzy: You can continue to have your elitist mindset, doesn't mean the game has to close off a larger fanbase. An easy mode could still be in the game and the elitist players can still have their fun. Adding more options doesn't take away from the experience.

Isn't that why the glass canon mode is introduced to Star Fox Zero as well? It's the players and web sites that tends to focus on the super easy mode.

@Dezzy: and as has been pointed out more than enough times already, that community will still exist, and it will almost certainly be more thriving than ever. I played though Bioshock recently for the first time on easy, and am now playing through it on normal, which I think would've been too difficult for me on my first play though. Now I can contribute to the Bioshock community and I am now very much in favour of the series getting a current gen sequel. That's one extra voice towards that campaign gained because of the low bar of entry, and that's one extra day 1 purchase that Bioshock 4 will get.

But that is a bad thing?

I think I'll jump ship at this point because I'll soon turn into the guys on the Color Splash thread who just regurgitate the same stuff over and over and over, I think I've made my point.

I think Dark Souls will never have an easy mode, and whilst that's a good thing for 'hardcore gamers' and a bad thing for newcomers like me, the fact that people would be outraged if From Software had a change of heart and implemented it is just sad in my eyes. Sad and pathetic.

@jariw: yeah that is one last thing I'm glad you brought up, though that reflects more on the clickbait nature of games sites rather than the point made in the video. Though I suppose you could argue that the two go hand-in-hand with each other, publishers prey on the easily influenced and hype driven 'hardcore gamers' who are driven by clickbait and manipulative articles on desperate websites which results in a group of easily outraged people.

@DefHalan:

No you can't. That's what elitism means! That it's only available to some people.

"Adding more options doesn't take away from the experience"
It doesn't take away from the individual gameplay experience but it DOES take away from the social experience that the Souls series has created for a lot of people. Grouping like-minded personalities based on a rigorously objective test of skill is part of what a lot of people have come to like the Souls games for. You can only get that if it's coldly discriminatory.

@TheLastLugia:

Your entire argument seems to be predicated on the idea that ALL videogames need to cater to everyone. I just don't agree with that and I don't agree that's a positive thing. I think MOST videogames should cater to everyone (as they pretty much already do, and probably need to for economic reasons). If you find that "disgusting", you can limit your disgust by simply avoiding those games.

@Dezzy: It hasn't taken away from Fire Emblem, I don't see how it would take away from Dark Souls.

Pokemon also has elitist crowds but is still enjoyed by lots of people.

@DefHalan:

Well if you're not one of those people who's incredibly devoted to the Souls community (I'm not either btw) then you obviously won't understand!
And I'm not in that Fire Emblem crowd either but I think a lot of those people say that it HAS taken away from Fire Emblem as they saw it.
Obviously in that case there's the separate problem that Fire Emblem was financially failing so they needed to change it. Dark Souls doesn't have that problem.

(I'm still waiting for evidence of this outrage over Star Fox btw)

@Dezzy: Here is a quote from a comment on one of NintendoLife's own articles

@Dezzy: did I ever once use that strong a word? I don't think I did, so I'd appreciate it if you don't misquote me in the future. You may not think much of our argument, but you've still not presented a good point as to why exclusion is a good thing, not one time, and you're just now blatantly ignoring the whole point if you're taking this stance that we're all lying about this, just look at the dislike ratio on the vid already (which is way above what Jim usually gets, even by his 'controversial' standards) look at the quotes he uses (or just say that he made them up just because that's how weak your stance is) or do what I suggested and see my personal example, or rather don't, if you want to just have your stance vindicated by your obliviousness, there's plenty of evidence, you're just ignoring it at this point.

I expected better really. Misquotes, ignoring the other side and still not bringing any good points into the equation. Easy mode in Dark Souls is something that should've happened ages ago, and your weak arguments against this are a great example why- sometimes there's not a reasonable reason why things don't or don't happen, and unfortunately it often goes against logic. I think you're better off just accepting it would be a good thing at this point rather than closing your eyes and covering your ears to the arguments presented to you.

@TheLastLugia:

Yes you did. I just got the wrong word. You said

and I accidentally changed it to "disgusts".

So after reading all of that, the total amount of outrage is still just a few angry comments on some forums and then 1 article on a site (that nearly all of the commenters disagreed with and called them an idiot on).
Seriously people need to start demanding evidence for things. The media does this constantly!
The top commenters on the Eurogamer article were even saying how silly using a single comment from 4chan is (as if it constituted news)

@Dezzy: and there ya go conveniently misinterpreting and ignoring things again! The 'repulsiveness' I referred to there is on the part of the 'hardcore gamers' who take offence at people playing their favourite games differently to them, and are now attacking a critic who dared to make a video suggesting it is a good thing. I most certainly am not disgusted, repulsed or offended by anything here (except the insults, I could have done without them obviously) I'm just sad that this is yet another disappointing trend of modern videogames. Sad and disappointed, but certainly not disgusted.

I think there are good cases on both sides. The high entry bar and resulting exclusivity of the Souls games is part of the attraction to a large portion of the fan base. Make the games more accessible, and that diminishes. People like to feel special, and while you still can feel special for "beating hard mode" when most can only beat easy, it's not as clear cut as, "I can beat this game", when few other people can beat it in any form.

And that's fine for Souls, in my opinion. It's okay for some games to be structured in a way that is non-standard or slightly esoteric. It's now considered par for the course for most games to feature voice acting, but I'm very happy for Zelda to stick to its text-boxes and grunts, because I feel that's part of its charm. It's a bit of a loose parallel, but I don't think it's completely empty.

However, does anyone really expect many modern-day Nintendo games to be made in the image of the Souls games? Maybe if it was a Metroid game, I could understand the desire for there to be only one challenging campaign, but Star Fox just comes across too silly and playful to require a single, po-faced 'Super-Hard' mode exclusively for the Lylat Elite. It's replayability and level based structure make it the perfect game to accept various difficulties and handicaps, each of which can give the player a different experience on each play -through.

I didn't find the Golden Tanooki Suit too offensive in SM3DW/L, and I've got nothing against a similar setup here. I do think there should be something to encourage the player to take off their training wheels (for example, not being able to pick up Star Coins/Green Stars in Mario), and I don't think the games should literally play themselves, but buffs that remove one of the game's obstacles while keeping the others intact seem like a great way to allow inexperienced players to enjoy much the game in a similar way to more experienced players.

Anyway, there IS a risk that this might turn into the Paper Mario thread ("It's just Sticker Star 2", "No it isn't", "Yes it is", "No", "Yes", "No", etc.), so... Yeah.

In short, I've got no problem with the Souls games being resolutely tough as nails, but I don't think that's a good fit for many Nintendo games right now, and I think the helping hand/super-buff system isn't a bad way of making a game more accessible, though there should be decent encouragements to 'graduate' from it.

Well, I am at work. Not going to google and hunt for you. I don't really care if you believe there are people upset about a optional mode. You got upset about the idea of an optional mode in Dark Souls, so not really sure what the argument is about there not being people getting upset over this kind of stuff. Feel free to keep asking for proof when it is out there if you really want to find it.

@TheLastLugia:

My mistake, I see that you were talking about them rather than yourself!

I have no idea who is "attacking a critic" though. There seems to be very suspect trend in modern internet arguments to deliberately conflate disagreement with "attacking" and "outrage". I have seen very little of anything beyond disagreement on this subject.

And this is not a "trend of modern videogames". You're painting a completely distorted picture of things just because you happen to dislike something. The reality is that games like Dark Souls that are innately elitist are a tiny tiny minority of all games. Because of your dislike for this phenomena, you're doing what psychologists call "catastrophizing", where you massively overexaggerate the rate and scale of things you happen to dislike. 95% of games are still playable for people of all skill levels.

I think the fact that you characterised my attempt of giving a calm and rational argument for why some people value "elitism" as me being "upset" pretty much solves this riddle quite nicely: almost no-one is actually outraged over this. People who disagree with them have just said they are.

https://mobile.twitter.com/JimSterling/status/711961773834969...

There's an example of the people attacking Jim, and I apologise in advance that he has only chose to share that lovely person's opinion, though going from his comments since he posted that video, people are apparently "off the wall" (as he puts it) that he suggested what he suggested. You can chose to continue to ignore this if you want, but I feel it should be beyond obvious by now that this is an issue. An unfortunate and pathetic one, where people are getting insults because of this, but an issue nevertheless.

I'll take that one though that I over-exaggerated when I called this a trend in gaming, it certainly isn't a myth or us lying or making stuff up as I'm now tired of saying, but yes I'm glad that you're probably right when you say that 95% of games are accessible. Still though, why not 100%?

@TheLastLugia:

Well once again that's just 1 comment. So we're up to the total evidence being that about 8 people are outraged. Or about 0.000005% of the WiiU userbase. For the sake of comparison 24,000 people signed that petition to cancel Federation Force.

The fact that you're quoting angry comments from his video is part of my point. I'm sure there ARE some angry comments on his video. But that's very likely because of his video, not because of the issue under discussion. This is exactly what I mean when I say the media generates controversy (not always of course, some controversies are genuine)

This is essentially just going up to a group of people you disagree with and shouting "Oi you're all outraged idiots" and then using their angry response as evidence for the fact that they're outraged idiots. Whereas if you'd never actually shouted it at them, they'd never have actually been outraged.

As for your 95% point, I tried to give you an argument for why some people value elitism. You disregarded it! But that's the reason. In a free market, it doesn't matter if you accept people's reasons for something. All that matters is whether they really do think that (and will back up that opinion with money). If they really do think that, that'l be reflected in the market. If it's just some kind of vacuous meanness by internet trolls, as per Sterling's account, then Dark Souls (and all equivalent games) will inevitably trend towards the mainstream.
Why do you need 100% of games to be accessible to you though? You can't possibly play them all anyway!