I have to say I'm impressed. It has been a long time since a game has thoroughly kicked my ass, and had me loving it.
I speak, of course, of Ninja Gaiden Sigma. Now, I've never owned an Xbox, so I've never played any version of this game before, but I have heard about the difficulty of this game. Still, I underestimated it severely. Look at it this way. To get through one section of it, I died maybe 20 times. Not even because I was trying to figure out the trick to beating a boss or anything of the sort. This was a straightforward slugout with a wave after wave of routine bad guys. Yes, footsoldiers in a video game who will kill you quickly and messily if you let your focus slip for a second.
In some ways, this is both innovative and a throwback. Well, to be more precise, it is innovative in the sense that it's a throwback. Remember games like Contra, Lode Runner and R-Type? Those arcade classics from a decade or two ago that were deliberately hard as hell, so as to entice you into throwing more tokens at them in an effort to finally beat the damn things. Of course, some were better than others, and the best were those that demanded that you figure out exactly how they should be played at every juncture. You play a level, get killed 20 seconds into it, play it again, remembering to avoid that sneaky bad guy that pops up right there, only to get killed again 4 seconds on. And so it went. Burning tokens through a level moment by moment. Sure, a general lack of motor coordination probably hindered me as well, but anything that can cause distress and anger while drawing out a kind of intense focus is surely worth my time. Actually, that sounds a lot like coding, except a lot more fun.
Games nowadays are easy. Most allow you to just blow through with no real effort needed. When was the last time you died in the course of playing the main quest in an RPG? Added to that the proliferation of "Easy" modes, and there's no reason to ever have to expend any real concentration on a game. In many cases, all you have to do is sit back and enjoy. To a very real extent, that's what you do with Final Fantasy XII. You set up the gambits, then sit back and watch the scenery. There's a reason I can play most games slouched on my bed, one hand on the controller.
Ninja Gaiden Sigma, on the other hand, has me standing a foot from the screen, even though I'm using a wireless controller. Both hands are busy working every button on the controller as dozens of combinations are used in rapid succession. A soldier is popped up by a quick two button combo, Ryu, your hero, leaps after his prey to continue with a series of slashes, signified by four further button presses, but decides instead to spin and kick the enemy away, propelling himself slightly back to bring himself out of range of the enemy commander he just spied charging in, requiring a swift series of three different buttons. Not enough distance. The commander grabs Ryu, dumps him on the ground and runs him through. Ryu rolls away from the cluster of bad guys, leaping into another roll, this time in mid-air, decapitating a low-end soldier as he goes, then leaps off the wall he runs into, doing a backflip, right into another footsoldier, who promptly grabs him, slits his throat, kicks him in the back and sends him to the game over screen. Damn. Do you want to give up the way of the ninja? What the hell? Well, I've died a dozen times already, let's see what this is. Ok, the game is making fun of me for needing an easier difficulty mode.
Do I hate this game for this? No. I decide not to take the easy way out, labelled Ninja Dog. A dog? Now, I am fond of my stuffed dog, but this is not acceptable. I grind through a dozen more deaths until I barely beat that last commander with nothing left on my life bar. Ok, now to find a store to pay for healing. That's right, no freebies. Then it's on to more of the same, battling through a stream of bad guys, dying frequently, backtracking a lot to save as often as I can. Until I run into a boss. Die a lot more. Turn to a online strategy guide for a suggestion. Dodge and block his attacks until an opening appears, at which point you should hit him with hard combos? What kind of stupid strategy is that? Don't get hit, then hit him. That's like buy low, sell high.
Anyway, that's what this game does. It kicks your ass very hard very often, then when you think you've got figured it out, kicks it even harder. Then it offers you an easier way out, but humiliates you when you take it. Yeah, it's hard, and proud of it.
I hear the previous version was even harder. Very tempting.
Similarly, Virtua Tennis 3 has been offering me a tough game. It's easy enough through the career mode, until you get to the last tournament. then you lose the match without winning a single point. Stunned, you level your player to the maximum, then try again. This time, you win one point when the opponent hits a volley long. Load and try again. This time, all the stops are pulled out, and every tactic you've ever played or seen played against you is attempted over the course of the match. At one point, you have your opponent on the ropes. You win a game! And another! Then the opponent adapts, pulling you wide on the first ball, so you find yourself with the option of dashing for the net, the opposite end of the court or simply adjusting and hoping the ball comes back. Of course, he reads you and smacks the ball far far away from your despairing racquet. Somehow, every match from then on, the opponent learns, and you run out of tricks to try. And you're back to struggling to win a point.
It is nice to sometimes get pounded into the dirt. Sharpens the mind.
