Is there too much hand-holding in games these days?

Back in the day, games don't give a crap about you.

It doesn't matter if the game is targeted at kids or not-so-kids, it was pretty much open the game and play. Games like Dragon Warrior and Harvest Moon and Zelda threw you into the game and pretty much say "This is you, and that is not you. You take this sword/hoe and apply it to the not-you. Repeat." That was all, and then you were set free to have much freedom in a linear storyline.

There was no hand-holding and no lengthy tutorials. You're stuck most of the time listening to vague villagers hinting at you and tyrannical despots shouting at you to slay demon kings without telling you where it is. You fight, you get killed, and you learn from your mistakes. You grapple with the menus and the inadequate menu descriptions, you spend two hours desperately reconfiguring your equipment to beat a boss. That was all part of the adventure.

These days though, I noticed the games are getting easier - and even the tutorials are getting longer and longer. They explain even the most basic things to you, which in the older games were just left there for you to figure out. (Like oh look! There's a button with an item drawn on it. You know what it does? Open the item menu! Who knew?) Lower difficulty too - closer respawn areas, lenient laws, easier bosses, higher exp gain - even some of the puzzle games have degraded from challenging to jokes.

I can't remember any off the top of my head, but it's just a trend I've been getting recently.

So...What are your thoughts on it? Should games go back to being challenging? Or is the pie regime perfectly fine?

 

I don't think games are getting easier, I play both new and old a lot and they are just different, both can be challenging.

 

the only differ i see between old and new game is they try to jam online in any game, regardless if that game is RPG or FPS or racing. there is always a freaking online mode.

 

The thing is without hand holding, gamers are going to get very frustrated fairly quickly. While it is part of it, it's not necessarily a good thing and I think it's what made the NES and SNES days of gaming somewhat of a niche. While some gamers say that those days were the holy grail of video games (debateable), some of the frustration associated with some games is too much to handle. My husband who has been a gamer for all of his life doesn't really have the time to sit down and play an 8 hour marathon of one game just trying to nail every mechanic, to pass ONE part, or going through trial and error, both of the last ones back in the NES and SNES days forced you to start far before you left off because of a lack of checkpoints. I'm sure a lot of avid gamers like him share the same problem of being busy a lot of the time with having a wife and kids.

While I admire a good challenge, there is such a thing as something being too vague and too frustrating. While I got through the first Zelda without TOO much confusion, the second Zelda (and I liked the game portion of it) was fucking terribad. Asking villager after villager and getting vague clues and just being boring made me get bored and frustrated because I couldn't be bothered with taking 30 minutes going to one gravestone far away without dying, or finding a secret entrance in a house by mostly chance. A similar game to this is Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. It is not challenging, it is vague, ridiculous, and I do not want to waist a ton of fucking time just walking around and NOT HAVING FUN.

Oh hey, guess what, I liked the first Zelda and Metroid (to a certain extent) and DQ/DW, but Castlevania II and Zelda II were fucking stupid, I liked the gameplay of the second Zelda, but the fetching and going about the world asking for hints was boring and monotonous.

Games have more or less become less of a niche market and are breaking out to the mainstream and becoming accessible. This is why we have tutorials and as long as gaming is going to exist, there will always be some type of tutorial. Although, I always wish that there's an option to skip them. For most shooters, all the mechanics are the same, don't show me them over and over again. Although in most games now there's always the option to put it to hard mode and it's similar to what you'd have back in the day almost, I know some games take away the hints in game and stuff, so that's nice.

It's a double edged sword either way you go, you can't please both crowds, so there's no point. The older style challenging games are for the niche markets (Demon's Souls and 3D Dot Game Heroes), and the more modern cinematic/hand holding games will still thrive on. In the end, all I want is a good FUN game that's just challenging enough for me to think that it's fun and not teeth shattering frustrating.

As long as the online mode is good, I honestly don't care. Although I do wish there were more local multiplayer options.

I honestly never heard a game being like this. And the thought of this game makes me bleed from the inside even more than usual, this game sounds like the worst game in existence. Why would I want to play a game where I 'grapple' with menus? What kind of game would make it difficult to access a MENU?

 

Touché. I was eight when I first got in on the Zelda scene, and I ended up having to plaster my thumb's inner joint from waaay too much pressing on the hard GBA pad.

Pfft, underdeveloped brains.

What's the problem with an online mode? If it's great, play it - if it's not, ignore.

 

its not like you can ignore it when there is a trophy to collect, because of the lousy ISP, those are proven every hard as lag almost always kill the game.

plus whats the point of having an online mode in a RPG game...

 

Dragon Quest IX and Demon's Souls says hi. Or any MMORPG says hi.

 

Ive had blisters many times from SNES and megadrive pads.

 

Because trophies are so important and of course we all live in a shitty part of Southeast Asia with terrible ISPs.

And Demon's Souls had a pretty cool online mode from what I hear.

 

thats why i never play them. but unfortunate for me, Dead Space 2 is rumor to have at least a freaking co-op mode.

i guess you never complete your game 100%.

 

Too bad, DQIX and Demon's Souls is probably a couple of the BEST RPGs of this generation, which both include multiplayer. Demon's Souls especially. MMORPGs are totally built around the social aspect. No matter or not you play them, it invalidates your question as to 'what's the point of multiplayer in an RPG'.

Because achieving 100% is so important. Even if you were a completionist, you'd know that 'oh hey, I cannot get ALL these trophies because my shitty ISP isn't tailored to online gaming' thus you came to your personal goal (or personal 100%).

 

Hell every time you got an item in NSMBWii it told you how to use the item, every single time

it was annoying

 

Are we playing this blame game again?

I live in the same country as you, and the ISPs are perfectly fine. 4mb not fast enough for you? Why not try the new, fresh HSBB from Streamyx? It runs up to 20mb, and then some faster.

There's nothing wrong with the ISP - online will always be slower than normal gameplay, you know. If you really can't wait 5 seconds for your opponent to pop up, then you might as well skip the trophy.

 

i only go to personal 100% when there is no way to complete it 100% like nintendo for holding up event pokemon or no co-ops partner in Peace Walker.

plus personal 100% doesnt give much satisfaction as completing the game 100%.

ya fine, my line is dead since sunday night and you call that fine? everytime i call them and they just "we are doing what we can to fix that". but when you are paying late for a day, they cut your line.

TM is lucky that there is no other competition in the market. If P1 isnt so sucks, i already change long time ago.

try 5 sec delay for every move you just made in fast pace fighting game like blazeblue. or try missing the jump just because 5 sec delay in LBP.

 

I can see calvins point, my lag is amazingly bad at times. It stops me even trying to play online most of the time 4am is ok though ;(

 

God damn, no wonder you wallow yourself in self pity.

 

i really dont see what so wrong in that, i mean you dont walk away when the movie is playing halfway, you dont walk away half way on dinner. so whats so wrong about wanting to finish a game?

 

Well, I don't watch the credits roll.
Or eat the dressings.

 

then i guess miss the real ending to incredible hulk or iron man 2.

 

Back on topic, try some of these: http://www.cracked.com/article_15696_the-10-most-irritatingly-impossible-old-school-video-games.html
I played Ghosts n goblins a couple of days ago with the intention of writing a review but I couldn't even get off the first level so didn't bother.