| DonFerrari said: |
The problem, from where I know, is that Souls (paraphrasing Hidetaka Miyazaki himself here) aren't "difficult for the sake of difficultness", but rather, the director envisioned a game on which the player would find satisfaction in overcoming hard obstacles. That's the whole point.
Every screen and enemy position has been carefully planned (at least on the original Demon's Souls and Dark Souls), it's path meticulously branched and generally giving the player a lost sense of direction so that they can feel and explore at their own pace. It's up to the player to realize that there are several areas they're not supposed to go in yet, largely because of the difficult spike. Nothing forbids the player to explore the cemetery right at the start of Dark Souls, next to Firelink Shrine, but any cautious player would suddenly realize it's better not to meddle there yet; however, the area is there for them if they want.
This whole sense of pervasiveness is made by fixing one specific point of challenge; something players must try to overcome. It's obviously not a game for everyone, but it's not made like that for any elitist sense or any other reason; it's because the whole games are designed with that vision in mind. Adding a difficult mode, let's say, that makes enemies deal 95% less of damage and the player have twice the HP would void the whole point, as the player can breeze even in parts the developer expects a more seasoned player to come later, thus screwing up most of the design. They could also implement a difficult that entirely rearranges enemy/item/equipment position, but why would them? It's not how they conceived the game at all, and that requires far more time and resources.
I don't really mind more difficulty modes, at all. The problem is that they're absolutely pointless in Souls games specifically; not for elitism, not for any bragging sense of challenge, but because every design decision poured into these games is thrown immediately out of the window in favor of a lesser experience. Yes, trust me, being able to breeze through Dark Souls would make it infinitely more boring, because the sense of progression would be entirely broken.
And still, there are invincibility or easy mods for Souls in PC, so there's that.
