We chat about videogames and videogame accessories.

All I know about games is that I'm fine with a challenge but there needs to be a very reasonable difficulty curve or I go absolutely fucking apeshit.

Any RPG where I come to a boss and get my ass handed to me? Grind a few levels, if that doesn't work I'll almost certainly give up. Fighting game where I can't get past a certain opponent? Instantly head for the difficulty settings.

It's not even an absolute challenge thing, because I can really enjoy obscenely, insultingly hard games. It's just when it suddenly gets way harder and I feel unprepared that I go all "oh this is lame" and give up. It also doesn't seem to be as much of an issue with bonus dungeons and stuff, which is weird, because I'd think it would be the story that makes me pull through.

Of course there's a need for a quality, steady difficulty curve but one thing I am a big proponent of, especially in RPGs, are difficulty spikes. I don't mind running into a fuck hard boss, and then the next boss being pretty easy in comparison. The gameplay takes me through an emotional level in that sense. I get my ass rocked and I'm forced to really think and attack in a different fashion and the whole thing is a fight, and then the next boss around I'm given a lob and I'm allowed to spike it straight through the ground and into the Earth's molten core. I get to feel triumphant beating the tough boss and invincible dispatching the wimp.

More on this subject, this is not a All-the-time thing that I like. I would be kinda pissed to go through, say, a whole Zelda dungeon and get that lob because Zelda bosses have a pattern to them unrelated to the difficulty curve. They are beaten by the item in the dungeon, or by a clever use of the sword. They don't really GET progressively harder, and what little difficulty they do increase in is really only relative to your heart container.