Playing games on the hardest difficulty

What constitutes a game that has a good difference in the various difficulty levels? Is it more enemies, unbalanced health, smarter AI? Also, what games are out there where the hardest difficulty is the way the game was "meant" to be played (For example, I remember hearing that the first S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was only going to have one difficulty level because that's how they designed the game, but ended up making the various difficulty levels at the request of THQ).

I've recently started up a few games on the hardest difficulty, and I'm having a blast with the games.

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The best games do hard difficulties by making the ai smarter. Not many games do it though. Im a fan of harder difficulties that change up enemy placement and add more enemies.

This.

Also more sparse item placement and more difficult to obtain weapons can be fun. But I can't think of any games doing this.

Games where harder difficulties that let you get more powerful weapons early, but also have you against later enemies at the sams time are also fun.

They designed Furi with the higher difficulty first.

If I'm playing a game where the enemies are braindead and the only thing that happens when I turn the difficulty up is they start taking 6 years to kill, I will be mad.

Perfect Dark did it best.

Work your way up from the points in between the mode you were playing to hard mode.

Which ones did this?

I know a few did but i cant remember off the top of my head. I know old strategy games actually did this, like capitalism. New strategy games dont do this though, they just give them more resources.

For the Halo games heroic is the way it's meant to be played But it's not the hardest difficulty though

It is in Halo 1.

The hardest difficulty needs to actually make sense and should be adjusted according to the genre. Making enemies hit harder doesn't make a game more difficult if getting hit was never a problem in the first place like in the first God of War. It just makes things more tedious. Removing health regen from a game where enemies almost never miss is simply not fun.

Ninja Gaiden did a great job with this. Enemies don't hit harder, instead they send better versions at you with newer moves, far more aggressive AI, and sometimes minibosses replace some encounters. Like having to fight a clone of yourself but they have more health and infinite ninpo. Hell, if you watch the way they fight, they can even teach you some things. I didn't even realize rolling had invincibility frames until I saw my double roll through my fire ball. Another thing it does is give you some tools sooner and more powerful tools later. Or how some enemies counter your most useful attack like the flying swallow. The maximum healing items you can carry is lowered and some chests now have enemies inside them. Dumbest thing they did though was make it so you have the beat each difficulty mode to unlock the next.

Then there are games like Tales of Graces F. The higher the difficulty, the more mechanics are thrown into the game. Hitting enemy weaknesses now stuns them even longer, you gain more materials after battle, you level faster, and unlock titles faster giving you access to more tools sooner. However, enemies become insanely aggressive, human enemies will dodge and sidestep your attacks, bosses gain new moves, and everything hits much harder. You are heavily rewarded for playing well but punished harder for making mistakes.

What's really nice are games with dynamic difficulty changes that adjust the content based on how well you're doing. God Hand and Gundemonium are great examples of this. Not getting hit and constantly chaining attacks nets harder enemies but bigger awards. Enemies will laugh at you and do silly attacks on the lowest difficulty but will try to tear your head off on the hardest. You can also raise the difficulty by taunting, or in the case of Gundemonium, force the hardest difficulty in certain sections to increase the amount of graze and points you can obtain.

I am sure that even old games such as Age of Empires 1 or Civilization 1 had enemies with infinite resources at the highest difficulty.

TimeSplitters did similar shit. It's great.

I know civ did it, but aoe is a surprise. Did 2 do it as well?

serious sam on serious is just right, not too easy that you can sleep walk through the game but not a bored kind of frustrating in the sense of hard/mental having no fucking ammo.

Looking at the wiki
ageofempires.wikia.com/wiki/Artificial_Intelligence
In AoE 2 on the hardest difficulty the enemy is given additional resources at the start of the game, though it says nothing about AoE 1.

Somewhat related; if you use cheat engine to give yourself a fuckload of cash in C&C3, the enemy in single player also gets a lot of money, like some kind of rubberbanding. I'm not sure if this only happens in higher difficulties.

The Thief games had different objectives depending on the difficulty, on top of increased loot requirements and, on the highest difficulty, not being allowed to kill humans. It's pretty great especially because some missions change radically depending on what you need to do. I wish more games did this.

I really tried playing it on serious, but the frog boss in oasis is fucking me too hard. I barely get through it on normal, but how the fuck do you actually beat it?

Mega Man 9 was pretty good on the highest difficulty. I like the way it added more enemies to the screen. It was almost like a different game. The fact that it was DLC kinda sucked tho

Rare really knew how to make an FPS back then.

get a minigun

Honestly most games aren't fun to play in hard because you're retarded tanks that oneshot you and normal is too easy because shit AI.
It really can all be solved with good AI but gamedevs are actively avoiding putting good AIs in their games because they'd outsmart the filthy casuals.
And they won't develop a smart AI just for the people that play in hard.

The best kind of difficulty increase is adding more movesets and abilities to the enemies and more aggressive use of them.

This works too. Games like Bayonetta or DMC did it pretty well.

Hardcore mode in New Vegas is perfect for RPG difficulty, a new mode that tweaks the default ruleset and adds mechanics that make things more difficult like ammo has weight. Ironically the very easy - very hard system is the lazy bethesda difficulty of raising enemy damage and lowering player damage. In racing games stuff like Forza modifiers (only ever played Forza 2) is cool because you gain experience quicker if you make things more difficult like turn off ABS or drive stick.
Difficulty is one of the best things about video games that sets them apart from other things, I try to play on hard as much as is reasonable

What games actually do that besides MMOs?

Metro 2033's Ranger Mode is a huge gameplay upgrade. Weapon damage across the board is tripled (enemies kill you in a couple hits, but you kill them just a fast now), max ammo is halved, ammo pickups are severely nerfed, all UI elements are removed. It turns the game from a mediocre FPS with bullet sponge enemies into a surprisingly competent stealth FPS.

my favourite kind of difficulty is one that raises the stakes for both you and the enemies. Making it so that you die in 2 to 3 hits, but also making the enemies take the same amount to die is my kind of jam. I prefer high risk/high reward kind of shit, I also prefer it when my enemies are on the same footing as me.

I'm most fond of New Game+ modes where you get to use all the endgame toys but in a setting where they're still balanced and the enemies are more varied and interesting.


Speaking of Thief, 3 has mods where the difficulty settings instead constrain you in different ways, I only bring this up for the "ghost" mode which stops you from blackjacking everyone willy-nilly, something I actually hate about the series but it's also far too tedious to do a pure ghost run in most levels.

In a similar vein there was some weird Doom WAD that used the difficulties in a similar way. ITYTD/HNTR for hordes of weak enemies, HMP for none so you can enjoy the cool levels, and UV/NM for less enemies but stronger variety and the weapons you get are weaker. I cannot remember what it was but it was for the Doom Legacy source port.


Master Quest is on the level of a shit ROM hack.


What does it do?

Mission: impossible for the N64 and PSX was breddy great on higher difficulties.

original 2033 is uncapped regardless, redux is cancer.

The last of us

Improving enemy ai takes priority above all else.
What are some ways to balance higher difficulties in rpgs?

I just aim to play whatever difficulty is the most fun. I am not going to try and prove anything to myself by playing the hardest if I can't handle it but I don't want to breeze through. My hands don't work very well so shooters need to get bumped down, but rpg games I can do on a harder difficulty.

I got stuck at the adult fire temple on Master Quest.

In Descent, the difficulty would decide how many projectiles an enemy would fire at once, their attack frequency, and how well they could dodge. So on higher difficulties enemies would not only try to dodge your shots more frequently, but they would roam more often as well, meaning that you can't brute-force your way through a level on Insane when a bot decides at random it'll move throughout the level and catch you off-guard. In Descent 2 the AI was also capable of leading their shots as well, which was also something dependent on the chosen difficulty. Though the beauty of Descent's AI came down to how each robot had unique behavior, one would try to aggressively chase you down, another robot type would try and hide behind cover to perform hit 'n run attacks, and so on.

I've got a better question -

Name a JRPG with difficulty settings that changed more than enemy health/defense/attack or player health/defense/attack

Thief has pretty good difficulty levels
Serious Sam adds more enemies and gives them some unique behavior on higher difficulties


yeah nah its fucking trash


SMT 3 increases enemy hit chance while decreasing yours. Some Atlus PS2 games also had bosses which were exclusive to harder difficulty levels.

We talking just turn based stuff or nip rpg in general?
If the latter, some Ys games have bosses with different attack patterns, projectile speed and some other shit on top of the usual stat buffs.
Also to a lesser degree, tales of eternia had Arche alongside Cless as an optional boss on higher difficulties.

How does one even play the original 2033 in current year

Pretty sure you can pirate it somewhat easily
I still have that in my steam account from the hundred of thousands of free keys that got released way back

I'd normally would agree with you, I pirated it originally but it looks like that release and all others still available today. Tried Razer1911 and Skidrow and 2 others they all appear to be broken. I can't even buy it from GOG or Steam its all been replaced by redux. I just wanna play the fucking thing again because the redux was too easy

you shouldn't spread rumors like this. there is no source for this. STALKERfags have the pretense to lie the flaws of their game away and shift responsibility.

The games that play at their best on the hardest difficulty is because the game was balanced around the hardest difficulty first.

Use the fixes provided in the steam forums for that game, it's extremely picky with having a legacy Physx driver installed at the first boot of the game for some reason but there are a few other things that make it CTD instantly.

Dead Space 1 and 2 did - imo you fags, a great job on that. Playing on the hardest difficulty gets you easy killed and makes the game even scary. DS 3's hardest difficulty wasn't as hard like in the previous ones, but a death in that difficulty erases your game file, which also made the game frightening. Since, you know, you actually die……. somewhat.

The comabt system in RPG's should've never been invented. The only thing it changes is grinding.

Unless you have friends to do it with Who the fuck am I kidding? You're on Holla Forums, of course you don't. or have a spare controller to play two player and use the idle controller as a respawn point when you die, you must have some sort of masochistic pain and frustration fetish.

I fucking hate "difficulty" that just makes the enemies fucking bullet sponges and make you and your team mates/ai partners as fragile as wet tissue paper.

goldeneye was the gold standard difficulty levels. It did that mostly through new objectives and restricting sections of the map and key items to higher difficulty levels.Perfect dark did the same but also increased the capability of enemy AI as the difficulty increased

The Halo games do compensate by making the friendly AI more intelligent on Legendary (IOW, you can actually rely on them, somewhat).

Halo 2 legendary was the worst, all the enemies have pin point accuracy and those ape things come sprinting and one shot you into the air.

I cant remember the AI in other games but they were useless in halo 1, I'd always try to keep them alive for fun but the elites would just mow them down.

In CE, the marines were terrible. You would only use them as fodder. In 2, they fixed this and its worth keeping them alive. The fact that you can trade weapons with them makes legendary much easier. Just give them an good weapon like a beam rifle, rocket launcher or sniper and they will shit on everything.

this game was designed with its Scavenger Mode in mind. The shops are barren, so upgrading your weapons and armor, or even buying ammo, is not much of an option. Disposable combat items like Pepper Spray and Flares, useless in Normal Mode, become indispensable as they provide some of the only ways to get through some fights without taking fatal or expensive damage. You won't want to waste them. You'll have to make do with your pistol for much of the game. You also start with 10 MP instead of 30, so you can't spam spells to get you out of everything. The enemies deal three times as much damage as they do in Normal Mode. You deal half as much damage. It uses the enemy encounter set from Normal Mode rather than Bounty Mode, so enemies won't be worth much EXP (how you upgrade spells) or drop much good loot.

You'll have to actually git gud, taking advantage of enemy behavior where you can and avoiding it when you can't, and you'll be running your ass off in fights to try and get some distance from your foes. Positioning is critical because some enemies have weak spots that let you actually get some decent damage in, if they'll let you get there. If you don't know the game mechanics inside and out you'll learn a lot from this mode.

When this game is described as a blend of survival horror and RPG, it's most accurate in this mode. The other modes leave you too capable in battle for it to fit survival horror criteria. There is a "harder" mode called Nightmare, but it's actually easier because they cripple your HP instead of MP, and you fight stronger foes that will drop much more helpful tools and grow your spell list quickly.

To give you an idea of how else this is a pain in this ass: the M93R is your starting weapon, and after the first level you can buy an M4A1 from the shop at HQ; it's a straight upgrade. You won't be doing that in Scavenger. The Assault Suit is the armor you start the main quest with, and it's mediocre. In Normal you can just buy the Combat Armor before you leave HQ. Damage weapons deal is dependent on ammo. The default pistol ammo has 10 power before damage calculation. The rifle ammo has 22. You will not be getting it for quite some time in Scavenger.

So you can see how this might actually make the game challenging. Normal mode can be stumbled through by any dumbass without much problem because you are horribly overpowered. I suspect game reviewers probably never unlocked this mode. (You can do it after 1 game of Normal if you don't suck and get a decent BP score, or 1 game of Normal and 1 game of Bounty by default because the game sees that you still need training wheels if you can't get a decent score the first time.

This game is really really well designed, but you'd never know it unless you compare how the items and spells and order in which you pick them, and pick your battles, radically change in importance between modes.

PE2 has good difficulty levels outside of the fact you need to complete the game to get them.
Nightmare mode kinda falls short by just throwing endurance battles at you you can't easily deal with (how fun does stripping 480hp 3-6hp at a time sounds), and keeping it that way for quite a long time.

Kinda but not exactly, the enemies get an higher resistance multiplier too and you're extremely restricted in your equipment to the point where you're basically relying on self found until the Dryfield revisit (so you're basically left with a Luger + Snail mag until you nab the P229), and what you get isn't exactly that great, outside of the Hammer but you have to keep that for the mines since you can't spam Plasma that much even with the extended MP bar.
In both modes once you understand that Necrosis and Plasma are the two most powerful things you have it's basically done since both those rape everything that isn't a Golem encounter or that one enemy but you also have Pyrokinesis

They drop M4 attachements that you can't recharge so you basically have to remember to keep them for the one battle where they really help and that's it, even the extended spell list and MP gauge don't help that much considering you're stuck with 9mm / 5.56 until the fucking shelter and you really have to spam the fuck out of of PEs to even get past certain bosses

Nope, it's longer to ready and turns slower while being a smudge less accurate at close range, all of which will fuck you once or twice in those modes, the real thing comes from attachments, still honestly lacks an underbarrel shotgun which would see some genuine use in that game

Honestly not at all, the main difference is the order in which you get weapons and the number of ammo box trips, the optimal strats for Scavenger also apply to all other modes (fight everything, unlock Plasma/Necrosis/Pyrokinesis Lvl2 asap then work on earth based PEs, keep shit you can't replenish for bosses or enemies that are weak to it, etc).

I ran out of ammo in a Golem fight in the Akropolis outside the Chapel on Nightmare because I forgot to go get a 500 round reload before triggering the cutscene. Of course, there are like what, three fucking battles along that route? Yeah, it' can get tedious as hell.

And you'll have to switch between using the PO8 and M93R at times because some enemies don't get hit with criticals, RoF matters more when exploiting weak spots, etc. So it's not all PO8 all the time, but It's definitely Pistols: the Mode.

While I don't think we differ in terms of what PEs are best, I unlock Energyshot first and don't really fuck with Pyrokinesis for awhile because Pyro lvl 1 is enough to get you a good damage lead on anything that takes damage from fire especially; you can just Plasma everything else. Metabolism 1 saves me inventory space for more Pepper Sprays and Flares so I like to grab that early too, Necrosis is necessary but I do get disappointed that its main uses are just for boss fights and Brain Stingers, occasionally Stalkers. Are there other enemies that Necrosis stunlocks (Maggots come to mind)?

I never really got fucked by M4A1 ready time, at least not until you start putting attachments on it. Yeah, the M93R is the extreme close range problem solver for sure but the DPS is similar. 22x3 can happen in about the same span as 10x6. The thing that gets me is that critical chance drops with range as does damage output, and the M93R starts dropping off after 1 meter, the other pistols don't until 2 meters. The M4A1's critical chances and damage output stay consistent at all ranges so I worry less about how my maneuvers will affect my ability to wipe any given enemy. With the Shoulder Holster you have that 50% bonus to targeting speed from Quick Fire so I found the turning to be not much of a problem.

Energyshot also raises your critical chance along with your damage output; the M4A1 has a zero critical chance when you have the M203, Hammer, or Pyke attached so I wouldn't even fuck with them if you can avoid it. I think Energyshot might be one of the most important ones to do early just because ending fights sooner saves ammo and health most of the time, and one casting of it lasts 75 seconds so you have plenty of time to maneuver while getting your boosted hits in.

I agree with your sentiment on the missed opportunity for a cool attachment. Maybe they wanted you to cycle between it and an attached PA3 since they have similar weights? I never saw that class of weapon as anything but support.

I prioritize Metabolism and Healing as well in other modes, since the MP pool is less tight and Metabolism can free up attachment slots from shit like Penicillin and Stims you'd be packing for the one time you get nailed with Paralysis or Darkness in one of the tight-ass Shelter corridors. I always get Metabolism 1 in Scav for that reason since it can prevent status for a short time as well as remove status.

I'm mostly agree with you. It is shitty that you can't select game modes until New Game+ (and you can never do Normal again). I'm also saddened they didn't make a Replay mode variant with like, Scav or Nightmare's damage multipliers.
.

Touhou has my favorite. Normal is perfectly doable and a fun, relaxing experience. Then you have hard if you want to have a little bit of a challenging experience, but not too bad. Lunatic wasn't really made to be done, it's more of an art thing, but you can do it. Then you can enhance your experience with ultra mode mods/90 fps runs/graze runs/no bomb runs/1cc runs. Then mix and match what you like.
You also get to pick which games to do it with. Want something easy? Play IN or MoF. Want something hard? lolK and SA. Want something in the middle? DDC. Touhou in general is very customization in terms of difficulty and the experience you want.

Did you not fuck up Chasers/Stalkers/Scavengers with 40mm Riot rounds? You can get the Grenade Pistol early In Dryfield in all modes and Riots get sold in all shops.

I'm not quite sure, I don't think so, the main use for me is the ridiculous hitbox it has since it ends many early fight very fast, the stun is the cherry on top.

Flare are pretty neat since they can room clear some places on their own but I never use pepper spray (to be fair I don't even buy tools at all so I don't get many to begin with)

I try to not rely on criticals unless I'm using the P08/P229, but yeah with my upgrade route I'm lvl 1 by N°09 and lvl 2 or 3 on the Flamer boss so just in, time to not have to worry too much about it

The M203 is neat on paper with riot grenades but I end up being annoyed by it more than anything else since the hammer does more or less the same thing, Hammer is godlike against anything that can be interrupted (aka chasers and blade golems) by it so you can just stand and dump your mag into things, sure no crits but things die fast all the same, Pyke you just save 17 seconds of it for the one boss and use the rest on the smaller underwater things for situations where Firefly ammo aren't necessary.

As long as I have it by N°09 in dryfield it's fine, the rest you have more than enough firepower to deal without it, I don't even use it outside of multi Golem fights and bosses and maybe a few of the larger fights.

Aren't the earth PEs much better for the MP pool?
Metabolism is kinda too slow to be useful at lvl 1, especially in those latter modes where if you get hit by those you're already most likely fucked anyways, the status prevention is also a bit too short for my tastes.


Scavengers I tend to just use Flare/Hammer, Chaser I go plasma or hammer + anything that hits hard (Pyrokinesis, Bayonet, P08 if I'm not in any real danger, M950 even sometimes), Stalkers are a joke just get in a cramped space and magdump your P08 w/Snail mag, it rarely ever fails surprisingly, you can even Plasma them and if you're lvl2 or better it's basically gonna be refunded MPs.

Good MP management overall in any mode (taking into consideration you get a fresh refill everytime you level a PE) makes the game considerably easier since even in Scavenger you can really spam PEs all over the place.

I actually never knew about half of that (attenuation especially but the crit chances on M4 with different attachments also), I never even used a guide until after my 20+ playthrough of the game I also never knew about the super secret weapon seller right before the final bosses until that, there's plenty of shit you don't exactly know but are lifesavers, the free Javelin/M249/Moongoose with the Medicine wheel for example.

.
What games have dinamic difficulty settings?
Off the top of my head there's Risk of Rain and pic related.

Improve enemy ai, never downgrade player's damage (or set it to natural damage if lower difficulties set it to 150% or something), basically turn the player into an npc. Most games however turn into a TAS and make the player fight with a wet rag. All in all, stalker does it the best

God Hand

Risk of Rain's dynamic difficulty sucked hard though. It would have been acceptable if one of the following things were not true:

1. increased difficulty makes enemies even more damage-spongey than they already are, making them take even longer to kill in an eternal snowball of tedium
2. you did not have to kill every single enemy
3. there was a way to increase your damage other than just getting lucky and finding the right items.

But all three are true so it's just frustrating, random, and tedious.

There's only one difficulty, hard, and Mohammed is his prophet.

Ironically, the same thing Goldeneye did : add new objectives and changing the level design a bit so you basically have 3 levels in 1.

The Hammer is maybe the most broken weapon in the game. I despise the M203 with a passion because in the M4A1 Grenade you either have a Grenade Pistol that weighs 390 or an M4A1 that weighs 390, can't crit, and has reduced damage. When I do Riot spam I just use the Grenade Pistol with another weapon attached and switch/reload as needed.

Pepper Spray paralyzes stuff vulnerable to it for 22.5 seconds, which is lots of time to pick them off; the rat NMCs suffer double that time so it's a cheap way to avoid cheap shots. I definitely recommend trying it. Flares are invaluable since they're an even faster Riot round with a 100% radius, not only do they clear some areas but they make the narrow corridors of the Mine, for example, painless.


You're right, the Earth PEs increase your max MP more; by that I meant in Normal/Replay/Bounty you can be more liberal with your EXP and MP so you can level it early if you like. The 38 ATP cost of Metabolism 1 is a bitch; it's more for Darkness or Poison than it is Paralysis. You throw a Flare or Pepper Spray if it gets too bad. Lv 2 is definitely more usable but you need Necrosis 2 by Burner, if not sooner, so I can see why you wouldn't prioritize it.


Every time I play the game I find out something new, see flavor text I didn't see before, etc. There's sooo much shit in here I'm still kind of in awe of it because here we are in 2017 discussing its finer points. There are at least two guys on the GameFAQs forums that got into the game's code via an emulated copy (or something like that) and got 100% accurate information on this stuff and stuff like damage formulas, etc. Did you know that when you drop below 60 HP you start taking less damage? It starts at 20% damage reduction and scales down to 40%. Are you also aware you can stack Antibody and Energyshot? You can only do it once, and the second casting doesn't all that much, and it shortens their active time from 75 seconds to 60, but when you have MP to burn you can really push shit.

One thing I hate about the game is how the map variety goes to shit on disc 2. Akropolis and Dryfield rooms are really varied, the battles have a lot of chances to distinguish themselves by giving you AND the enemies room to move. Disc 2 is almost all corridors, even most of Neo Ark feels that way. I have come to loathe Neo Ark just because of repeated backtracking to the Island switch at the Pyramid to get 100% kills. I get it, the game wants me to run the Horned Stranger gauntlet repeatedly.

This game badly needs a REmake or fan done one. I feel like you could do anything to make Neo Ark better. The Shelter is fine, you just shouldn't spend so much time doing the same shit in it; they try to mitigate the corridor feeling with rooms like the Sleeping Quarters and Breeding Room but it's not enough.

Did you know that a significant chunk of the guys who made RE1 and 2 were on this dev team? The game was criticized for being an "RE clone", but I think none of the critics knew why that might be the case and I personally think it's a selling point. Ryoji Shimogama monsters are like no other.

Just set the right artifacts at the beginning of the game.

I started playing Ghost Recon Wildlands on the hardest difficulty only to realize it was the normal difficulty of old Ghost Recon games. On top of that the game is not very good, if I had paid for it I would be disappointed but it's only a designed-by-committee copy/paste AAA cash-grab.

Okay, I'm masochistic enough to attempt Halo 2 on Legendary….

How the Hell do I get out of the second cargo bay?

...

I can't play RoR without glass anymore, I don't know why the games stats weren't set to that by default.

I actually did find out about that one, but I wasn't aware of any of the other things though.

.>This game badly needs a REmake or fan done one
It really does but with SQE losing the rights to the content fro the novels it and them being jumpy as fuck when it comes to their IPs chances are slim.

I actually didn't but that doesn't surprise me, still one important thing they forgot to bring over from RE is the quick turn.


Only problem is the game kinda becomes about how fast you can get infusion once you do that.

The World Ends With You made enemies smarter and more aggressive on higher difficulties

Vanquish did difficulty settings beautifully.

Pokemon surprisingly, there's different AI for the different kinds of trainers too.

yeah, PE2 could be greatly improved just by having RE3's tank controls. Aya moves pretty shittily considering. When I go back and play RE2 I'm stunned by just how fast Leon and Claire run by comparison. I also find it funny how PE2 has the same inappropriately loud footsteps SFX that RE2 does. After the Third Birthday, abandoning all hope is the correct course of action, sadly. Maybe when we're old some newfags will make an AM2R dealio for us. I wondered why Hideaki Sena would be a bitch about licensing and then I found out that the agreement to make Parasite Eve the game a sequel to Parasite Eve the novel was done without his input; his publisher collaborated with Square on it. So, he probably never really wanted this shit to happen in the first place, I'm thinking. It's sad but I understand.

Jagged Alliance 2 1.13 on INSANE.

Within A Deep Forest adds a few more stage hazards but also makes most of the different balls control differently (harder).


Most of them have no difficulty settings, and also some of the games have QUALITY AI that literally picks random moves for most trainers.


Oh, that's not that uncommon.


Fittingly so does Resident Evil 4, the game it's based on. Some Touhou games have a built-in rank system too, making the bullets slowly get denser if you don't die.

I play games on the hardest setting so I can feel some small accomplishment from wasting my time and also so I can flex to casuals on imageboards.

I play games on the hardest setting so I can formulate a more informed opinion about it by gitting gud and surviving all the bullshit the game throws at me

Best higher difficulty modes I've encountered are in Thief 1-2 and Devil May Cry.

Thief adds more and more objectives that make earlier difficulties feel like cut content missions as well as barring you from killing anyone. DMC just adds more and more cuhrayzy shit on top of it all, Dante Must Die mode is just fucking brutal but it feels like this is what the game was designed to be like in the first place.

I believe Monster Hunter games make the monster much more agressive on G Rank, am I wrong? Still playing trough the single player in 3U though, not that hard, but I also did some of the high rank quests in the multi and I don't know if I could do that alone, really hard, can't even think about fighting end game monster like elder dragons.