*** Minor Jade Empire spoiler ***
I created this thread for a little rant.
There are several games out there I have beaten in which I was looking forwards to increasing difficulty to get some more re-playability out of it. Unfortunately, the developers have implemented that feature poorly, in what otherwise is a great game. Let me give you three common mistakes I have seen:
a) Only allowing the player to choose harder difficulties after completing the easier difficulties (worst offenders I remember: Metroid Prime series, Resident Evil 4). I don't see what the point of this is. Are they afraid that the player is going to choose a hard difficulty by accident, get pissed off, and not buy their sequal. Maybe the harder difficulty is a reward for completing the game on normal. There is only one problem with that: when you have beaten the game once already, but the game save does not have it recorded on that particular system. I finished Metroid Prime 3 on Normal and Hard difficulties. I started the game on hypermode difficulty, and then left it for a few months. Later, I thought I would re-start in hypermode, so I deleted my save file and created another only to find out I now have to finish normal and hard modes again to unlock hypermode. Anger!!! I really don't feel like finishing the game on Normal and Hard only to unlock Hypermode; That is a big waste of time. Besides the point I will probably be tired of the game by the time I unluck Hypermode. What about those people who, for whatever reason, looses their save file. They are screwed also.
b) Making the hard difficulty tedious instead of difficult (worst offender: Jade Empire Special Edition (PC)). I can only think of one game that really screwes this up, and that is Jade Empire. In the really hard difficulties, the enemies have a ton of HP. The best way to defeat those enemies, I discovered, is to use a combination of Paralyzing Palm and a hard hitting style. Even with that hard hitting style, it takes forever to defeat enemies at really hard difficulties. They would have been better off increasing the damage they deal, and maybe removing some fighting stlyes like Paralyzing Palm, than increasing their HP where it takes forever to kill them. I know I could just not use Paralyzing Palm, that leads me to my next point.
c) Not including a hard difficulty. Is it so hard to program (I learned how to program in college, it is not). There is almost no manpower required to just include a mode where the enemies deal more damage or whatnot. I think many Zelda games would have been a better experience for me if they had just given me the option of a hard difficulty from the start. I know there are challenges you can make for yourself such as a no-death run or only using the wand (from Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening), but these seem artificial and secondary to a hard mode. It doesn't take much effort for developers to do this.
I am out of time. There is my little rant, feel free to rant yourself if you are annoyed by this also.
edit: I will go ahead and add
d) Developers who use cheap methods to make the game hard. This really doesn't fit into my original three, as they are about otherwise well designed games that just don't have well designed harder difficulties. However, it seems to annoy a lot of people, especially me. Whether the cheap challenges are due to sloppy controls, or poor developer imagination, they are just annoying. Good examples are: not explaining the rules well enough, not distinguishing between dangerous objects and safe, challenges that rely mainly on luck, control interface makes it difficult to fight (I'm looking at you, The Witcher!), poor design choices make it difficult to fight.
