this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2025
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Easy games are fine. It can be a nice way to just plow through a good story. However, I'm absolute trash at games and beating Dark Souls was one of the best and most memorable gaming experiences I've ever had. (it took me well over 200 hrs because I am a garbage-person) Had the game been easier I don't think it would have hit the same way.
That's not to say every game has to be like that but it's great when it works
You don't know, because there was no option. That is the point we are trying to make.
Doing Fire Emblem soft Ironmans (not reloading when a unit permadies) made me love the series even more, it went from "ughhhh do I really have to move on without this guy? This sucks, what if I'm underpowered later" to "I lost 40 people and died for the first time at the penultimate map, this is a beautiful, sorrowful story".
I now let a unit or two die even when playing for the first time, because it basically adds your own personal death scenes to the story. I will always pay respects to wolf boy who died to make that one final push happen, or respect the axe bro who went through his Kratos arc with a dead wife, kid and second dead wife.
Playing Final Fantasy Tactics as a kid basically made me refuse to allow any units to ever permadie because it took so much goddamn time to level them up and develop the jobs, and the thought of having to hire a new unit at level 1 to replace them is enough to drive a child insane.
To this day, I just can't deal with it.
Celeste is the perfect embodiment of that philosophy IMO. The whole story is an explicit metaphor for overcoming a great personal challenge. And the gameplay's difficulty is what drives that point home and makes the game an all-time great.
I've seen a couple streamers with G4m3r Skillz breeze through Celeste, and the game didn't leave them much of an impression. But it touches very deeply those who struggled through it because the struggle is the bond that ties the player to Madeline.
Other games it doesn't really matter. Portal 2 is a great game even if the puzzles are quite easy, because the greatness lies in its writing, atmosphere and worldbuilding. There's an Aperture miniseries just begging to be made - but a Dark Souls or Celeste cinematographic adaptation would miss the entire point.