The Shrine

A: Neither understands the difference between making a game difficult and making a game irritating as shit to get through.

This weekend I finished beating both Castle Crashers (yes, I know, 3 years too late) and Splosion Man. I enjoyed both games overall but in both cases, it was just irritating to finish them enough to the point where I really don't want to ever play either game again. I like difficulty as much as anyone but there's a major difference between making a game tough and making the player Hulk rage over how irritating it is.

For instance, the "garbage boss" (the second last of the 4 bosses before the final boss), for lack of a better term, in Castle Crashers. Now, we did only have two players but holy crap was that boss annoying as shit. Half the time was spent in the air not being able to move as you get demolished by a huge wave of the most irritating enemies all attacking you super-aggressively all at the same time. We got through it but man, it was frustrating and not fun at all. I'm sure it would be a lot better with 4 people to spread the love out a bit but with two people it was super annoying. And that's before we even talk about the corn boss (who took forever to beat 'cause he just kept disappearing) and some of the other "chicken shit" bosses (ie. bosses who spent 70% of the time floating away and attacking from a distance or being unhittable). Again, not overly hard, just annoying. After a while, you just don't want to do it anymore (kinda like why we stopped playing Alien Hominid) but we were so close we just wanted to beat the game.

Then we get to Twisted Pixel. I like the fact that you get a ton of levels in Splosion Man (50 total for those who don't know) but really, I would prefer to get 30 better ones and cut out the wasted 20 levels. Once you get to the third world, it's all about very fine timing with instant deaths and long waits between checkpoints. Considering the "jumping" doesn't exactly have pin-point controls and you are often just falling inbetween lasers where you can only see so far ahead, it becomes more trial and error as opposed to skill-based (even moreso than Trials HD). Not exactly a fun way to finish a platformer.

I don't hate either game and would recommend both for the right price (I got Castle Crashers for 560 points and Splosion for 160, each is easily worth it for that respective price). But they were really more of a chore to finish after great beginnings and not really something I'm lookin' forward to going back to play again.....ever.

Finally! Everybody was raving about fucking Castle Crashers when it first came out, but after playing Alien Hominid for just one level, I didn't want to play ANYTHING that guy ever made EVER.

Super Meat Boy seemed to have that same feel when I played the demo. Never ended up buying it. I like hard games, but I don't like punishing games. You die a lot in Limbo and Braid, but death isn't annoying. You just try it again and figure it out.

Castle Crashers is far superior to Alien Hominid. And it really doesn't get irritating until over half way through. You can fight through it and beat it (being separated into a world map and having checkpoints mid-level helps...A LOT) and it never gets as annoying as Hominid. Those guys did learn something. And if you play it with 4 people together I'm sure it's a helluva lot less annoying as the focus of the enemy is spread out. So it's still enjoyable later on if played with 4 people. But I cannot imagine anyone playing it on their own and not wanting to throw the controller at the screen in the last few levels.

And it depends what your definition of punishing is. I like games that are very, very hard.....as long as they're not irritating to play. Never ever felt like putting down Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts or any of the Call of Duty games on Veteran, I wanted to beat them and felt that I could. With Crashers and Splosion Man, it just felt more like a chore that I just wanted to finish.

Crashers I may pick up again someday if I can get 4 people together or try one of the arenas (we skipped them). But I really don't want to try to unlock all those extra characters or really want to go through the whole game again. Splosion Man? I may try the multi sometime but it's just going through the game again. So it'll probably just be a novelty. As for going through it on hard where EVERYTHING kills you in one shot? FUCK THAT