I think difficulty in a game is hard to define. Making an enemy just have more health, or only one weakness, isn't necessarily hard, just more tedious. In Phantasy Star Online and Universe for instance, enemies have Megid, which can instantly KO you. This isn't hard, just annoying as a random ball of megid can hit you after you've been doing fine, it can do 50 damage, you can have 3000 health, and it'll kill you. Making jumps and such in action games have to be perfectly timed, is also tedious.

Enemies hitting harder, having more health, etc, are not challenges. The closest thing I've seen to challenge in a game is needing strategy. That seems to be the only way to add challenge to a game. This is why I love games like Metroid, Zelda, and Fire Emblem. The bosses/enemies in Metroid and Zelda have methods to defeat them. The enemies are obviously easier, and the bosses have methods that you have to figure out to defeat them. They're the closest thing to challenge in an action game I can think of. On top of that, as soon as you learn the method, you can easily beat many of them without getting hit. Fire Emblem on the other hand is a strategy game, and strategy games such as it, and advance wars, have become my new favorite genre. They can truly challenge you. In RPG's leveling can solve basically any difficult problem. In Fire Emblem, you can have a character with everything capped, but employ a bad strategy and they can still die. Hence my love for this genre.

So in summary, I find strategy/puzzles to be the only real difficulty in games, and most of the other things added for difficulty, are just tedious... and probably the main reason I can't enjoy them as much anymore.

THE JACKEL