Challenge v. Contrived Difficulty
Over the last few years, video games have taken on more emotional weight in my life, and as such, I’ve been more and more curious about older games that I never got to play as a child. So with the barren wasteland of summer releases (or the barren wasteland of summer releases before I bought a Switch in August, which is now taking over my life) I decided to finally hunker down and play some old games. Naturally, I started with Mario. We had a SNES growing up, so I have played these games before. However, I was four years old, and I didn’t know how to interact with them properly, which is a nice way of saying, “I was shit at them and couldn’t get past the first few levels without the help of my brother.”
Patiently, I went through Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels (Or as it’s known in Japan, Super Mario Bros. 2, which is how I’ll refer to it from here on), Super Mario Bros. 3, and my favorite of the series, Super Mario World.
It’s easy to be skeptical about an earned pop culture status in the age of the comment section, but there’s a reason people often cite Mario games as the greatest of all time, and as far as I can tell, these games are pretty much as good as everyone has always said they are. There are endless reasons why, from the art to the sound to the precision of the movement. But what stands out to me the most is not only the gameplay, but how it evolves the deeper into the game you get in order to test your skill.
All four of these games offer plenty of challenge, and I found myself loudly shouting at many a difficult level. However, whenever I had trouble with a particular level or section, I never felt that the game was being unfair or that something contrived was happening to intentionally make things harder. (Okay, I may have felt that way a few times during Super Mario Bros. 2.) Instead of relying on contrived gimmickry, like a lot of similar platforming games, Mario games build on themselves. Of course, new concepts get injected here and there, but instead of that being the entire point of the game, the level designs rearrange what you already know in order to up the challenge.
Let us take an example from Super Mario World. In Yoshi’s Island 3, you’re introduced to the concept of elevated “air” levels. These levels teach you that there isn't always going to be a flat surface for you to safely land on underneath the elevated platforms, so you have to be extremely careful about the timing of your movements in navigating to the end of the level. That means calculating when you’ll jump on a moving platform or one that will collapse if you stand on it for too long, because if you’re timing isn’t right, you’ll fall and die.
Wait for the platform to swing back to the top, then jump to the next. It is generally not a good idea to try to jump on things that are above you. In this game and in real life.
Later, in Donut Plains 2, you’re introduced to fixed camera levels where the camera always moves to the right, despite your own movements which usually control the camera and what obstacles you can or cannot see. You learn that in these levels, you need to leave yourself enough space behind and in front of you to navigate the oncoming obstacles.
Now that you have mastered these skills, you’re more equipped to handle a level like Butter Bridge 1, an air level with a fixed camera.
Is it a challenging level? Yes. Did I swear a lot while playing it to the extent that swearing’s lost all meaning to me? Maybe. But it’s fair. All it really does is ask you to be better at skills you’ve already mastered earlier in the game. Later, you'll be asked to weave in even more concepts or rethink elements you’ve already learned. It doesn’t have to go out of its way to make things harder. It just happens naturally. At times I was frustrated, but I was always having fun.
So after my time with Mario was done, I still had an itch for platforming, so I decided to tackle the first two Donkey Kong Country games. I played the first one. It looks fantastic for a game of its time and I did have fun overall. But I also found it more infuriating.
I don't think Donkey Kong Country is a harder game, mind you. In fact, one could easily argue that Donkey Kong Country is actually substantially easier than any of the Mario games. However, not only is the movement more imprecise, but it also has a more gimmick based philosophy. You aren’t building on skills so much as adapting to whatever new concept the developers have concocted in order to make things more difficult for you. It didn’t feel like one concept naturally developing into the next. It was more, “I don’t know, what if you’re in a moving cart in this one?” It’s not a game about mastering skill. It’s a game about randomness.
As a result, when things got hard, I found myself getting angry because I could feel the hands of the developers going out of their way to make life hell. Instead of focusing on how my actions helped me progress, I thought more about the math and the coding. When I fail, I want it to be my fault. Instead, I found myself thinking, “I’m going to find whoever animated this giant bird thing to move like that and the person who was responsible for making my movements slower than this bird so I can shove this game up their ass.” Then I'd feel ashamed for thinking that, which in my mind became the game's fault. Because I'm deeply immature.
But I did beat Donkey Kong Country and I moved on to Donkey Kong Country 2. This was the Donkey Kong game I remembered the most from my childhood, so I was excited. The visuals are still as lush as I remembered them being, and the music was still as incredible. However, Donkey Kong Country 2 doubles down on the randomness while also making its levels much harder. Eventually, I got to the King Sting boss fight, where you’re asked to control a parrot that shoots eggs from its mouth in order to hit a small stinger on a giant attacking bee. After my twenty trillionth time failing, I gave up on the game. It wasn’t fun anymore. I was too aware of the fact that this game was going out of its way to make things more difficult, and thus I didn’t feel immersed anymore. There was nothing culminating to this boss, and in the end, it felt like a “fuck you.”
King Sting. Piece of shit.
So then, for some reason, I decided to move on to Mega Man 2, the famous action-platformer originally released on the NES in the winter of ’88. In many ways, Mega Man 2 is, to put it mildly, stunningly brilliant, and it’s easy to see how and why so many games built on the foundation it laid down. However, contrived difficulty wise, it often feels more like a claw game. A rigged contraption designed to stretch out its worth for as long as it can before you move on to something else. I got as far as the fourth stage in Wiley’s Castle before giving up. It was just too hard, and while I respect the hell out of it, I’m not entirely sure I was ever having fun or that I ever felt engaged. I was too aware of the matrix.
I realize the above paragraphs make me sound like a dumb millennial who doesn’t like old games, but the contrived nature of some elements of “difficulty” apply to new games just as well. I bought two games with my Switch. One of those games was The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It offers plenty of challenge and difficulty to be sure, but for the most part, it does so in a way that feels organic and surmountable. (Although I have a quibble or two with certain elements.) Larger enemies hurt you severely, but they have patterns and weaknesses. Figure them out. Some of the terrain is harsh and will actively hurt you. Figure out the equipment and elixirs you need and keep going. The puzzle in a shrine may be difficult, but none are impossible. (Except for the motion controlled ones, which are maddening for maddening’s sake.) I haven’t finished it yet, but I’m loving every second of it.
Got my fire resistant armor. Got a sword that does high damage. Could do with some more health, but I took a hit before taking this screenshot. This is doable.
The other game I bought was Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. It’s a fantastic game overall, but when you’re playing in the tougher Grand Prix circuits, specifically the 150cc, Mirror, and 200cc ones, the difficulty often feels more forced because you can tell that you’re falling victim to a ramped up AI.
Provided you know what you’re doing, the tracks are simple enough to navigate. It takes more skill to navigate them when you’re moving at higher speeds, but that’s a natural element that comes with mastering the steering and selecting a kart that matches your play style. I loved doing that part.
But all of the sudden, your opponents have suspiciously good aim with the green shells and the amount of times I was blue shelled escalated to a degree that felt ridiculous. In other words, the rubber banding feels deeply, well, fucked. I realize I’m complaining about an intentionally higher difficulty setting that’s existed seemingly forever. (Except in the case of the 200cc circuits.) But it doesn’t feel like a test of skill. It feels like I’m waiting around for the game to let me win when the coding feels like it.
Hey look, I'm not the only person who feels like the rubber banding in Mario Kart 8 sucks. Shocker. (Sorry about the blurriness.)
When I’m watching a movie, I don’t want to be aware that I’m doing so. I want to be engrossed in the story and focus on my emotional response to whatever’s happening on screen. I don’t want to focus on bad editing or a strange story contrivance or poor special effects. Similarly, when I’m listening to music, I want to focus on the expression and how it makes me feel. Not on the mathematics of how all the pieces fit together. Of course, you can find beauty or meaning in these elements if that’s your prerogative. They just don’t appeal to me personally. I want to focus on the painting, not the frame.
High levels of "challenge” and “difficulty” aren't selling points to me for video games because, when done incorrectly, I focus on the code rather than the game and what it’s trying to communicate. It sells out what I care about in games, narrative, visual aesthetic, etc., in favor of engineering. I’m not thinking anymore, “I have to defeat this monster in order to save the world.” I’m thinking, “I want to move past this frustrating moment in my life with this game, so I have to figure out the limitations of this monster in this programmed game and exploit them.”
And that sucks, because there are tons of older games I’m never going to fully enjoy as a result. I’m never going to confront Wiley. Or I might go back and use cheat codes. But at this point, I don’t want to do either.
Again, “difficulty” doesn’t have to be contrived or unwanted. I’m still loving Breath of the Wild because it makes me feel like I’m a small but effective agent of change in a universe much larger than me. Naturally, there will be challenge. But I’m overcoming it because I want to, and because I want to make the world of Hyrule a better place. Overcoming the hardship thus becomes part of the beauty. Not just an obstacle before an end.
