Most Controller Flingiest AKA Most Absurdly Difficult
Difficulty of games is a very interesting to me nowadays. More and more I find that I want to enjoy the gaming experience and not be frustrated in the process of doing so. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I am becoming a casual gamer, but as my life has gotten more busy I find that I would rather see something new in a game and not be languishing on stage for days on end. Even so, there are games that treat difficulty as a badge of honor such as Ninja Gaiden (which berates you mercilessly if you lower the difficulty level) and Halo (which says that the most difficulty level is the real way to play). Some folks find that brand of masochistic behavior fun – I still have mixed feelings in regards to that.
Mega Man 9 was an interesting game in 2008 as it was designed with old school 8-bit graphics as homage to the old days of the NES. Along with the old school graphics came old school gameplay: that is, Capcom made the game incredibly difficult to satisfy fans of the series, oftentimes evoking thoughts that the game was deliberately designed to frustrate you. In fact, I don’t remember the original Mega Man games on the NES ever being this difficult. And yet, I still had a lot of fun with the game – a testament to solid game design.
Stuff that can kill you here: insta-kill spikes on the ground, a spinning pendulum, and a teleporting robot that shoots stuff. Yep.
Needless to say, I have not finished Mega Man 9 – I stopped at around the 6th robot master defeated before my interest was diverted elsewhere to another game. This was only after dumping a good eight or so hours dying, breaking controllers, and calling myself an idiot for getting tricked by the game. Perhaps I will finish the game one day.
