Today's RPGs are too easy

Does anyone else kinda miss the days when RPGs were actually unforgiving and challenging?
I feel that most role-playing games today babysit the player too much and basically explain step by step exactly how to play the game, what to do etc, and I wish they could respect the player's skills a little more, like they used to .
A very good example of a challenging RPG is Dragon Quest 2 - right from the start you are supposed to travel to this Spring of Bravery which is very out of the way, and it's up to the player to prepare as much as (s)he can in order to survive that journey - but it's vital to gain a couple levels and stock up on Medical Herbs and Antidotes, or else you are not gonna survive the long journey there and back.
This kind of merciless challenge right from the beginning is very rare in today's RPGs, at least as far as I'm concerned.
I'm sure there are still brutal and challenging RPGs somewhere out there, but I wish they were more common.

In hindsight, I don't know if there is actually a difference in volume of challanging RPG's across the ages.

NES days probably had the most. Get to SNES, the hardest games on that were FF IV, BoF 2, and Ogre Battle in terms of RPG's. The only real consistantly hard RPG series I can think of is Dragon Quest. Otherwise it's just the occasional difficult RPG, and bunch of moderately challanging RPG's, and some easy RPG's.

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Originally Posted by NeoCracker

In hindsight, I don't know if there is actually a difference in volume of challanging RPG's across the ages.

NES days probably had the most. Get to SNES, the hardest games on that were FF IV, BoF 2, and Ogre Battle in terms of RPG's. The only real consistantly hard RPG series I can think of is Dragon Quest. Otherwise it's just the occasional difficult RPG, and bunch of moderately challanging RPG's, and some easy RPG's.

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Sure, though my impression is that they seemed to assume a lot more that the players would figure things out on their own in older RPGs, and I like that.
It might be convenient to have in-game tutorials, but it becomes a little too easy when the game starts telling you step by step what to do in order to progress, IMHO.

Attachment 40006

It is all you need.

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Originally Posted by *Laurelindo*

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Originally Posted by NeoCracker

In hindsight, I don't know if there is actually a difference in volume of challanging RPG's across the ages.

NES days probably had the most. Get to SNES, the hardest games on that were FF IV, BoF 2, and Ogre Battle in terms of RPG's. The only real consistantly hard RPG series I can think of is Dragon Quest. Otherwise it's just the occasional difficult RPG, and bunch of moderately challanging RPG's, and some easy RPG's.

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Sure, though my impression is that they seemed to assume a lot more that the players would figure things out on their own in older RPGs, and I like that.
It might be convenient to have in-game tutorials, but it becomes a little too easy when the game starts telling you step by step what to do in order to progress, IMHO.

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I don't think most games have that problem actually. FF X certainly did. But games like Mana Khemia and the Shin Megami Titles simply have to many mechanics and oddities to just expect a person to figure out without getting frustrated. Megami explains all of it's systems and mechanics in good detail, but doesn't stop the game from utterly kicking your ass. :p

Oh, and a pre-emptive piss off to Mirage. The games are legitamely challanged. :mad2:

(SPOILER):p

A lot of old RPGs were difficult mostly because they had weird bizarre mechanics or something. Or because the controls were terrible. (Daggerfall I'm looking at you.)

To be honest, FFX did hold your hand throughout much of the first portion of the game. Even then, it was still easy.

I quite liked FFXII's way of doing it. From near the beginning, you could go really quite far into the westersand, where rare game like Fideliant and Dustia can completely own Vaan.

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Originally Posted by Pike

A lot of old RPGs were difficult mostly because they had weird bizarre mechanics or something. Or because the controls were terrible. (Daggerfall I'm looking at you.)

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I don't think poor controls would make a typical RPG that much harder; the worst thing that could happen would be that you accidentally chose the wrong command during battle due to unresponsive controller buttons.

But, of course, it would've been much worse for more action-oriented RPGs, e.g. Star Ocean: The Second Story (although there were no problems with the controls in that specific game).

Well Daggerfall was in first person and it takes like a half hour to figure out how to swim so... xD

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Originally Posted by NeoCracker

Oh, and a pre-emptive piss off to Mirage. The games are legitamely challanged. :mad2:
(SPOILER):p

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In some cases, yes, they are. In other cases, they are just derp.

In either case, try Disgaea!

I've found a lot of more recent RPGs are super easy story wise and put all the difficulty in the additional dungeons or DLC. Take Mirage's example of Disgaea: the story mode is a joke, but it's the addition post game bosses that destroy you, your hopes, your dreams and your grandchildren, all in one turn.

What 'days' are you referring to? Other than the 8-bit era, I've never found RPGs to be that challenging. NES games were pretty unforgiving though.

I think the reason you may find today's games less challenging is the fact that you can adjust difficulty in many RPG series. Games like Mass Effect or Kingdom Hearts may be easy on the standard difficulty, but crank it up all the way and it's hardly a cake walk.

As mentioned, Dark Souls is a good example of how RPGs can still be painfully challenging.

In FF1, you had to spend 60k for a spell that you had NO idea what it did. You also had to hope you could kill a boss, because there were no save spots in the dungeon.

In FFX, you get straight up told "FLYING ENEMIES ARE WEAK TO WAKKA".

Yeah, i'd say they got a little easier.

Older RPGs may have been harder, but that doesn't mean they were any better. Many times, the only solution to challenge back then was just to grind. Grind and grind and grind, rather than strategy trial-and-error.

But yes, RPGs are much easier today. I often avoid new games anyway because they are often condescending and will hold your hand the entire time. No thanks.

Games have come a long way. So have gamers. Stop being so condescending to us and let us play the damn game. Change trout up and let players learn on their own which strategies work the best.

Also, cut it out with the walkthroughs and guides. They are another reason games are getting too easy. Heck, I know a few people that will read the damn guide as they play their first playthrough. :rolleyes: How is that any fun?

I would like to see a turn-based, menu driven RPG with that NES level of difficulty and I should probably try some of the few that do still exist out.

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Originally Posted by Yar

Also, cut it out with the walkthroughs and guides. They are another reason games are getting too easy. Heck, I know a few people that will read the damn guide as they play their first playthrough. :rolleyes: How is that any fun?

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I have to admit I am guilty of doing this sometimes, particularly with larger games with many hidden secrets. While I wouldn't want a guide punch me in the face and force me to use it, I like the *option* of choosing a walkthrough, should I feel I want/need it.

I think with RPGs it's hard to judge difficulty because often there's no scaling involved, no difficulty level. With action, hack n' slash etc type games, there's often a difficulty level scaling. Therefore a player can adapt to their skill level. With a non-difficulty level scaling system, the game makers often have to "guess" how hard their game should be.

This is why you get top heavy games like FFX. Virtually the entire main game story is really quite easy, therefore they might have gone "oh snap", and made the sidequests much more difficult. Therefore, you get a top-heavy game where the main story is easy but elements like mini-games, monster arena are alot more difficult.

Course, this is just theory.

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Originally Posted by DownDiagonalLeftA

In FF1, you had to spend 60k for a spell that you had NO idea what it did. You also had to hope you could kill a boss, because there were no save spots in the dungeon.

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But some of old school JRPGs had save states and full healing spots.

I don't miss any of that trout. The challenge came as an exercise in patience by and large. Want to spend 100 years battling imps to max out your level as much as possible in FFI....go for it. I don't generally care for all of that time. I prefer how Xenogears and Chrono Cross handled it. In Cross the normal battles didn't help you worth a jack and it was the boss fights that leveled you up thus making sure they could give you a good challenging fight. Xenogears accomplished this same thing with Mech Boss Battles by limiting the equipment you can buy.

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Originally Posted by edczxcvbnm

I don't miss any of that trout. The challenge came as an exercise in patience by and large. Want to spend 100 years battling imps to max out your level as much as possible in FFI....go for it. I don't generally care for all of that time. I prefer how Xenogears and Chrono Cross handled it. In Cross the normal battles didn't help you worth a jack and it was the boss fights that leveled you up thus making sure they could give you a good challenging fight. Xenogears accomplished this same thing with Mech Boss Battles by limiting the equipment you can buy.

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Actually, come to think of it, FFXIII did limit your levelling too with the whole crystarium level system. That was quite good, and meant you couldn't accidently get overpowered.

While a majority of the game isn't especially difficult, some of the super bosses in Xenoblade Chronicles are downright mean. Maxed level? Good for you. The strongest enemy in the game is still 21 levels higher than you and requires quite a bit of strategy and preparation to take down.

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Originally Posted by Cim

I've found a lot of more recent RPGs are super easy story wise and put all the difficulty in the additional dungeons or DLC. Take Mirage's example of Disgaea: the story mode is a joke, but it's the addition post game bosses that destroy you, your hopes, your dreams and your grandchildren, all in one turn.

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However, you can still pass ten "stronger enemies" bills the very first time you attempt the story mode, and have a pretty hard time. You could say the disgaea games are as difficult as you want them to be, but that is kind of the case for most RPGs.

After all, even many new RPGs are kind of hard if you don't spend even a single hour at grinding combined through the entirely of the story mode, or don't do any side quests where you get lots of levels.

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Originally Posted by Yar

Older RPGs may have been harder, but that doesn't mean they were any better. Many times, the only solution to challenge back then was just to grind. Grind and grind and grind, rather than strategy trial-and-error.

But yes, RPGs are much easier today. I often avoid new games anyway because they are often condescending and will hold your hand the entire time. No thanks.

Games have come a long way. So have gamers. Stop being so condescending to us and let us play the damn game. Change trout up and let players learn on their own which strategies work the best.

Also, cut it out with the walkthroughs and guides. They are another reason games are getting too easy. Heck, I know a few people that will read the damn guide as they play their first playthrough. :rolleyes: How is that any fun?

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Agreed with all of this!