When I was about 15, I can distinctly remember playing Wave Race: Blue Storm on the GameCube at my grandma's house. It was a summer vacation day, if I recall, and the room I was playing in was warm. Late afternoon, around 3 o'clock. I had the game set on hard and I was in the final race. And I could. Not. Get. First. Place.
I can't describe how pissed off I was. No matter what I did, no matter how well I raced, the rubber band AI was always creeping up on me, nipping at the back of my jet ski, and ultimately overtaking me. This went on and on for like an hour. I was cursing under my breath (hey, no cussing at Grandma's!) and for the first time in my life I wanted to chuck the controller through the TV screen.
Instead, I toughed it out, I persevered and finally got first after countless attempts. It was a glorious victory. I fought to earn it.
I had a similar experience playing Celeste. The notoriously difficult platformer was another game that got me so infuriated that I was convinced my Pro Controller was going out and that it couldn't possibly be me that was the problem. Eventually, just like with Wave Race, I got better, developed the skills I needed to win, and beat the game.
Let's flash forward to 2024 and the litany of people calling for FromSoftware to nerf the difficulty in Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree. Because it's just too hard, you see. There are even journalists joining in on this. And look, I get where the impetus for this is coming from. They want to be part of the fun. Everyone likes Elden Ring, so they want to play it, too. Except... they're not all that good at it. They can't handle how hard it is.
And because they can't handle how hard it is, that means the game suddenly needs to cater to them and their own limitations.
I disagree.
Games are art. They're expression. Never in a million years would I look at someone who has created a piece of art, produced a form of expression, and say, "Hi! I don't get it, so would you change it so that I can?" It would be like walking up to James Joyce and saying he needs to dumb down Finnegans Wake because, gee, it's just too hard to read.
Why should that sound like insanity but telling FromSoft that Erdtree can't be what they made it to be isn't? Just because some people can't handle it?
I'm sorry, but the old adage of "git gud" really does apply here. Rise to the level of the game or shut up and play something else. A video game does not revolve around the tastes of a player. Sure, as a product it can be marketed a certain way, its themes, mechanics, and so on shown off so that the consumer can make an informed buying decision. But the difficulty, the story it tells, the look of the characters, all of that is at the discretion of the creators and no one else.
By all means, if you don't like it, then don't buy it. But every indication is that 25 million copies later there is an abundance of people who get Elden Ring and want it exactly as it is—which is not what some player or journalist crying on social media wants. Art is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor. Art can be exclusionary, and there's nothing wrong with that.
So get good or move on.
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