While there have been harder games in the franchise, and even within the genre, the original Devil May Cry stands out as one of the best examples of how to pace difficulty in gaming. At the same time, it was never impossible. Death wasn’t just looming around every corner, it was an inevitability. Enemies, and especially bosses, were relentless. It also became quickly known for its downright brutal, unforgiving difficulty.
#DEVIL MAY CRY 1 REPLAY MISSIONS UPGRADE#
Originally released in 2001, Devil May Cry effectively popularized the character action genre with its endearing protagonist, progression based upgrade system, and combat designed around looking as stylish as possible without getting hit or letting up on combos. It’s made all the more frustrating when realizing that’s exactly the approach a PlayStation 2 hack ‘n’ slash took to difficulty. A game can be hard while still engaging the player in a fair way. Many difficulty modes higher than the standard aren’t designed with fun in mind. Anything harder is just a bonus, so why does it matter if it’s properly balanced? Even then, as long as it’s beatable, is it really an issue? As frustrating as some “Hard Modes” can be, they almost always have the decency not to be impossible which goes back to the issue of challenge versus fun. After all, the “intended” way to play through a game is often on its default difficulty.
The majority of developers toss in their difficulty modes later, because most players aren’t going to bother playing past whatever the default mode is. The majority of games are designed with their standard difficulties in mind, and this shows in how the gameplay is paced. More than anything, though, the biggest issue plaguing the average “Hard Mode” is the fact that it feels like an afterthought, most of the time. An arbitrary lack of resources, enemies being able to better read a player’s inputs, and repetition forced by increased boss health/decreased damage output do not a good difficulty mode make. This isn’t a bad idea, conceptually, as it theoretically offers a more rewarding experience for anyone willing to master a game’s mechanics, but that notion falls apart the moment any difficulty mode above the default fails to take the game’s design into consideration. The average “Hard Mode” simply turns enemies into damage sponges while upping the damage dealt to the player character. Across the board, higher difficulties prioritize challenge over fun as if the two are inherently incompatible. This is not a generational issue, either. If a game features difficulty options, chances are they’ve been implemented with little thought given to how upping the difficulty would better the game.
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