Game Difficulty - How Hard is Too Hard?

In the past, on some forum lost in the bowels of the Interweb, I remember being flamed mercilessly for letting slip that I use strategy guides while playing games. I asked right back, what is wrong with that? Why does it matter to you how I play my single-player game? Of course, the only responses I received were more flaming and next to no logical discussion as to why they feel the way they do. Such is life on Internet gaming forums and the anonymous nature in which they allow their members to post.

A post over at Kotaku this week recalled these events to mind. I looked over at my bookshelf, the bottom shelf of which is filled with strategy guides for everything from Final Fantasy VII to Oblivion.

To touch on this point briefly, the main reason I enjoy using strategy guides for most games I play is because I'm a sucker for completion and don't have time to replay games numerous times to find everything there is to find. I at least want the best shot I can have of doing all the side quests and getting all the ultimate weapons the first time through. Not all of us are so hardcore that we need to beat our heads against the wall for weeks and possibly months on end playing and replaying a game to get every last item and finish every last event.

However, this post is about game difficulty, I'll get back to strategy guides in a moment. How difficult is too difficult? As you well know, I'm an RPG otaku and, as such, I much prefer story over just about anything else. (Yes, I know, if the game play is horribly bad, its hard to get into, regardless of how good the story is. See Xenosaga Episode II.) What annoys me the most about games that intend to create incredibly difficult game play is that, for more casual gamers, they're blocking progress and story completion.

I absolutely hate playing through a game and enjoying it, then getting to a roadblock of a boss and either not being able to defeat it unless I make attempt after attempt or having to go back and kill tons more baddies in previous areas to level up some more to be able to defeat it on a more even playing field.

I don't necessarily feel the need for challenge in the games I play, but there has to be some. I suppose I'm being picky, but its a fine line to walk - the line between being challenging enough, yet not so challenging as to stop the player from actually progressing. Progressing through a game is the point, correct?

Now, in the past with game such as Space Invaders, Pac-Man and the like, I can understand the challenge being greater because the whole point of the game was to rack up the highest score. There was no story to unfold as the game progresses. Now, however, nearly every game of every non-sports genre has a story. How do you make a game so difficult that the players get frustrated and quit before they can see how the story unfolds?

The seemingly obvious answer to all this is to put different difficulty levels into the game. Yet, I've heard from some that I've talked to that they don't even like this. It seems to "cheapen" the experience somehow, knowing that someone else somewhere out there is playing the game on easy mode and seeing everything that someone playing the game on hard is seeing, just having an easier time of it.

I could go on and on about this subject, but I suppose it all comes down to the player themselves and the developer giving them as many choices as possible. Why should one person care how the other is playing the game? This really only comes into play in competitive online games or MMORPGs. More choices - hard or easy, strategy guide or no strategy guide - is really what makes me smile, because I know I'll be able to play a game without the frustration and wasted time of trying to figure out every last detail with nothing but my controller and limited intellect. Those who feel the need to be hardcore can be my guest, but I'll sit back with my strategy guide and beer and avoid unwanted head-to-wall action, thank you very much.