From looking at games I noticed there's always two conflicting forces at work:
1. You want to make the game such that being good at it takes some kind of commitment.
2. But you still want the game to be accessible.
For example your typical Bullet Hell fits #1 but is not accessible. A game like Mario fits #2 but you're unlikely to find anybody perfecting their Mario skills unless they're making some video for Youtube.
So what games have you played where both applies? That is it's a game where you can suck at it and still enjoy it and see what the game has to offer, but being good still means something? I do not consider any multiplayer aspect as valid simply because it's trivial to argue any multiplayer game can fit both as long as you've some good opponents. You can pick multiplayer game, but its depth and accessibility can't be from the multiplayer aspect.
I can't think of too many such games, but here are my picks:
1. Street Fighter 2. I actually play the single player mode of this quite a bit, and it's obviously quite accessible since on the low star difficulty anybody who can hit some buttons can win. I think you even get an ending on fairly low star dificulty, and with unlimited continues it's usually a matter of patience to beat it on the 8 star setting for the ending + character slideshow thing. Now I was never able to get the best one where you got to beat the game without losing a round or something like that, but I didn't feel I was missing a chunk of the game because I can't get that.
2. Soul Calibur 1. The extra mode can be pretty demanding, but what they ask you to do is not impossible even if you totally suck at this game. I remember the hardest one is probably beating like 6 guys in a row at where Kilik started at, and that can be done with some luck even if all you know is push X X Y like me. I assume people who are actually good at this game can try the challenge stuff but you can basically see everything the game has to offer if you're determined enough. Most of the latter Soul Calibur games continued this, but I felt SC1 had the best mix.
3. Grandia 3. At a rough glance this is a stupidly hard RPG, and if you turn off the hints you're in for a world of hurt. However, since it is a RPG, you can always simply keep on level up if you never understood its battle system until you get to a point where you're strong enough to beat the game. Mastering the Grandia 3 system allows you to beat the game with very low level/stats and while you don't get a medal for that, it gives you a sense of accomplishment, yet the average player's enjoyment of the game is not diminished.
4. House of the Dead. I absolutely suck at light gun shooters but obviously if you got enough quarters you can eventually beat it even if you suck! And certainly I see people who are good at the game that do some pretty impressive stuff.
1. You want to make the game such that being good at it takes some kind of commitment.
2. But you still want the game to be accessible.
For example your typical Bullet Hell fits #1 but is not accessible. A game like Mario fits #2 but you're unlikely to find anybody perfecting their Mario skills unless they're making some video for Youtube.
So what games have you played where both applies? That is it's a game where you can suck at it and still enjoy it and see what the game has to offer, but being good still means something? I do not consider any multiplayer aspect as valid simply because it's trivial to argue any multiplayer game can fit both as long as you've some good opponents. You can pick multiplayer game, but its depth and accessibility can't be from the multiplayer aspect.
I can't think of too many such games, but here are my picks:
1. Street Fighter 2. I actually play the single player mode of this quite a bit, and it's obviously quite accessible since on the low star difficulty anybody who can hit some buttons can win. I think you even get an ending on fairly low star dificulty, and with unlimited continues it's usually a matter of patience to beat it on the 8 star setting for the ending + character slideshow thing. Now I was never able to get the best one where you got to beat the game without losing a round or something like that, but I didn't feel I was missing a chunk of the game because I can't get that.
2. Soul Calibur 1. The extra mode can be pretty demanding, but what they ask you to do is not impossible even if you totally suck at this game. I remember the hardest one is probably beating like 6 guys in a row at where Kilik started at, and that can be done with some luck even if all you know is push X X Y like me. I assume people who are actually good at this game can try the challenge stuff but you can basically see everything the game has to offer if you're determined enough. Most of the latter Soul Calibur games continued this, but I felt SC1 had the best mix.
3. Grandia 3. At a rough glance this is a stupidly hard RPG, and if you turn off the hints you're in for a world of hurt. However, since it is a RPG, you can always simply keep on level up if you never understood its battle system until you get to a point where you're strong enough to beat the game. Mastering the Grandia 3 system allows you to beat the game with very low level/stats and while you don't get a medal for that, it gives you a sense of accomplishment, yet the average player's enjoyment of the game is not diminished.
4. House of the Dead. I absolutely suck at light gun shooters but obviously if you got enough quarters you can eventually beat it even if you suck! And certainly I see people who are good at the game that do some pretty impressive stuff.
