Current Events > Today's Top 10 on Ghouls n Ghosts: ''This series is not hard, it's unfair.''

(+) Yeah! (+)

The G'nG games lay out several traps that are sure to get the player on the first try. Most games do for that matter.

It's up to you to memorize where the enemies are going to be attacking from and respond accordingly. The only point in the original trilogy of games that I would argue as unfair is the last castle in Ghosts 'n Goblins because ghosts spawn at random and can potentially get in a cheap hit.

Would you call the G'nG games...proto-Dark Souls-likes?

Seems pretty unfair to die to something you had no reasonable chance of avoiding the first time. Many people consider trail and error a design flaw these days.

I don't mind it to some extent since I grew up with it, but it's not for everyone. I was more of a fan of the "Show don't tell" difficulty you can see in some of the Mega Man games. The player is shown the gimmick in a safe environment, and then later is placed into far more dangerous situations involving said gimmick. If you die, it's because you didn't play well enough. Not because you aren't a psychic.
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Umbreon posted...

Seems pretty unfair to die to something you had no reasonable chance of avoiding the first time. Many people consider trail and error a design flaw these days.

That's because games today are ten times the size of games back then. They can let you win the first time you play a level or mission because you're still guaranteed eight hours or more of gameplay. Back then, sabotaging the player was the only way to keep the game going.

"Oh, we're sorry. The boss has a second form. Looks like you've expended too much of your health to stand a chance in the second round." "Whoops. Did we mention he has an instant kill attack with only a split second's warning? Better watch out for that next time." "That? That's the bridge that collapses. You should've taken the other bridge which is sturdier."

It was absolutely fair to expect a player to make multiple attempts getting through levels when you had five or six of them. The thing I find fault with is the Chaos Emerald method of making you go back and collect hidden items along the way to get the true ending. That's just making the player replay it for the sake of replaying it.

It is unfair, they were designed that way on purpose to pad out an otherwise really short game
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I don't see how that's fair. Expected, sure. But "fair"? To the player?

Consider the little kid playing the game, not the people who made the game and need to make a profit. That's like saying arcade games were fair when they were designed to get quarters out of you.

Unfair games can still be fun, unfair games can still be good.
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TC would go mad if he ever played Rick Dangerous
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