The Best REWARD a Player Can Get
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- čas přidán 1. 06. 2024
- What causes a game to make the player strive to be better at It? What rewards do games use to incentivize the player to play with higher skill? In this video I talk about my favorite skill based games and why perfecting them can feel amazing. Games like Celeste and Hollow Knight are some good examples, and so I wanted to make a video about other games that do something similar.
0:00-1:03 Skill Issue? Git Gud.
1:03-2:14 Cuphead S Ranks are Visual Rewards
2:14-3:27 How Hollow Knight rewards your skill with Lore
3:27-5:06 Enter The Gungeon Wants you to Succeed
5:06-7:55 Why Ultrakill is the Game of All Time
7:55-8:31 The Future of Skill-Based Action Games
If you are wondering about a specific game I used footage of just comment and ask with a timestamp!
Songs Used:
Celeste Beyond the Heart
Downstream
Cuphead Forest Follies
Hollow Knight Grimm
EtG Oubliette Sting
Ultrakill Into the Fire
Ultrakill Deep Blue
#indiegame #games #gamingvideos #video #cuphead #hollowknight #enterthegungeon #sekiro #ultrakill #doometernal #videoessay - Hry
Whats the most difficult thing you have done in a game?
Beating every single boss fight without dying once throughout the entire boss rush run.
You only have one life in that game, but I made a rule that makes you restart all of the bosses when you take a hit, so that was very cool.
Pantheon 5 of HollowKnight. 1 mask left, battling Abs Rad, with the 4th stage activating, I depressingly dragged myself up the “staircase”, thinking it would be yet another death. And yet somehow I pulled through in the end. That moment when I landed that last strike and the shade lord was summoned was the closest moment in my life I have ever legitimately felt like I could’ve had a heart attack.
@@littlesillycat which game?
S ranking all boss in Cuphead
@@Pogobro It's a relatively unknown game, it's called "Nameless Cat" and it's pretty fun.
There's only four bosses but they're quite difficult to get through with only one health so I'd say that it's quite the challenge.
It's also a puzzle game, so when you're not fighting the bosses on 1 HP, you're dealing with the puzzles on 1 HP, although you've got checkpoints through the levels, not the boss fights though.
saying skill issue in a serious way means you have a skill issue in human interaction
absolutely
Skill issue in commenting about skill issue
Whats wrong with someone having poor skills at the game and someone else point 👉 ing to tha?
@@ZZaGGrrUzz there are ways to point it out without making fun of the person
@@BulbaGaming123 don't be so seeeeerious
"some people just wanna chill with a little terraria after a long day"
me with 400 attempts on death master providence: yes
-skill issue-
jk, though i barely play terraria calamity mod ever since 1.4.5 but usually i memorized providence attack order.
don't even need calamity tbh, just daylight EoL will do wonders to a casual player
Defiled Malice Providence would like to say hello.
I agree. Ultrakill is definitely a game of all time.
it may in fact be THE game of all time
@@Pogobro maybe because it IS THE GAME OF ALL TIME!
Truly a THE GAME OF ALL TIME moment
"best part was when V1 said "It's ULTRAKILLing time!" and ULTRAKILLed all over those guys!"
@@hoovysimulator2518 no it wasn't it was when i pirated the game i mean bought it
Celeste is a pretty good game for perfecting because when you beat a level, you unlock it’s b-side. You can also go for strawberries, crystal hearts, golden strawberries and c-sides. It just feels so good to beat it.
agreed, Celeste is fantastic!
The best thing about céleste is that you get checkpoints every single room.
You need to collect b-sides from secret rooms in the level as well in order to unlock it.
Celeste just has so much content you're naturally driven to go through challenges multiple times and get better, it's so cool !
@@Hack--rz1io True, the main story is only about 1/5 of the game.
It might sound wierd, but one of my favourite examples of "rewarding skilled players" is Super Mario Odyssey.
Now, mario odyssey is by no means a hard game, you can be awful at video games and still get through. But the thing about odyssey is how much faster you can get through if you are skilled.
Almost all bosses in Odyssey have something called "speed strats", which is harder way you defeat the boss, but takes way less time. Some of these "speed strats" can be extremely hard to get consistently and have ended many speedruns. Odysseys incredible movement system also has a very high skill ceiling, giving you the ability to skip some areas by making a hard jump.
The game is practically desinged with speedrunning in mind, while still being very accessible by less experienced players.
Odyssey even has an assist mode which shows you the path to the next story moon, doubles your base health, allows you to sit still to restore that health, gives you infinite air underwater, and prevent you from falling off the stage/into lava by placing you back on solid ground and taking one HP. It’s also the first mainline Mario game to not have a lives system, instead having Mario drop 10 coins that can even be recovered provided they fall on safe ground
My favorite related mod of this is the hide and seek mod where it favors both skill and luck.
@@WhoIsJoe31 Can you please explain what that has to do with my comment?
@@hulias3107 you talked about the game being accessible to new players. I added that the game has an assist mode.
I replayed Mario 3D Land two days ago and I can confirm it's the same
The game that makes me feel most like a GOD is GhostRunner. It’s a short game, yes, although the way you move and the way the combat flows makes me feel like the game could easily be 3x long. I couldn’t recommend the game more.
I really need to get it. Been eying it for a while
You've probably heard of it but if you haven't Katana ZERO is a really good game that's pretty similar to ghostrunner but in 2d and with a much better story
@@OrangeCreamsicle I enjoyed Katana Zero but wasnt blown away by it, I found the gameplay to be really simple. The atmosphere and OST are killer though, so I am really looking forward too the DLC
@@Pogobro it's simple but I think it's really well done
As someone who eats ghostrunner, yes. On top of that, the game even has an added challenge called "Hardcore Mode" where you play through thr game again, but with much more harder scenarios with the layouts you remember
dead cells is a game that does reward you perfectly for playing it good with the 5bc and some specific doors that can only be open if you completed a level in a certain amount of time or killing 30 to 60 enemies in a level without getting hit ONCE.
I personally like Skill Based video games, as beating that one boss you were stuck on is just so satisfying.
Although my personal preference is Strategic Video Games.
Video Games where you need to think two steps ahead and calculate everything, with some of my favourites being:
"Pokémon Platinum", "Pokémon Ruby" and Pokémon Nuzlockes in general. Although it's obviously not something that everyone likes.
That's the reason I love playing those types of games whenever I do. Slowly going from Inkwell Isle 3 in Cuphead being a struggle for me to beat to now beating it twice as fast as I did back in 2017 is a very rewarding feeling within itself. Inkwell Isle 4 really helped improve my skills though lol
Chess
@@asuka376 Yeah Chess too
expect Pokémon isn't a strategy game
@@antonioudovicic4899 you obviously don't know what you're talking about. What exactly is pokemon then? Do you know what a nuzlocke is? Define strategy. You can have many different forms of strategy. Even in games that aren't "strategy" games. Pokemon is more strategy game than others. ESPECIALLY if you put self imposed rules. Try again.
As someone that has been playing videogames for a long time and is a hardcore player of character-action games I can say for sure that right now ULTRAKILL is my favourite game.
It's easy to pick, gives choice on the difficulty, has complex mechanics, extremely fun gameplay and rewards player expression and skills.
I haven't seen many character-action games well made in the first place and I've never seen an integration done so well of another genre into an FPS.
Let's hope that this will push character-action games and the likes to the next level, because as a genre series like DMC or Bayonetta are quite niche and don't get a lot of content on the long run, so the more the merrier :)
Complex mechanics is right, I had no idea you could shoot the coin with the other revolver's lazer until I read about it in the weapon description, letalone punching the coin...
@@theanomaloushendo4516 Wait until you find out about chargebacks.
I don't think it's stated anywhere in game so I'll spoil it here, don't read below the line if you don't want the secrets spilled
-------------------
A chargeback is when you take a coin and hit it with a laser. Now, I know what you're thinking, that's just an ultraricoshot. But you see, a chargeback is more than just an ultraricoshot, because you do it with someone else's laser. Whether it's Maurice (Malicious face), one of the sentries introduced in Act II, or a similar laser, if you can make them hit your coin, it's a chargeback. Honestly one of the most fun mechanics. Learning about chargebacks, slam storage, and projectile boost instakills on the Mindflayers really sells the game for me, which is insane because my favorite thing I've found to do is ignore all the fun weapon tech and start P ranking everything with no weapons equipped. I've beaten V2 to death with my bare hands and did it with enough style to P rank the level twice over. It's such a rush. But the game's just deep, and that lets you swim in the pool your own way.
I love how DmC 5 handles this. You can just run away from enemies and spam your gun, or if you pull off combos, you get a badass announcer and an awesome soundtrack whenever you hit an S rating or more. At the end of the Mission you just get more red orbs for doing the level quickly and with style, which don't lock you behind anything, since if you don't go for combos, then you'll likely don't need more moves to extend your combos.
Agreed, your comment explains what I wanted to say basically perfectly!
CrossCode has a system where better enemy drops come to the fore the longer you stay in combat and the more you kill while in combat. It doesn't reward you directly for mastery or not taking damage, but both are good tactics for getting that unique part of the soundtrack that only plays in S-class combat. There's also a unique screen effect at S class as well as dialogue for all the gear-shifts from D to C to B to A to S for each character.
Also, as a CrossCode fan I am legally obligated to coerce you to play the game.
Last I checked, Crosscode boosts item drop rate based on rank, and some items are gated behind rank completely
@@M4Dbrat Yes, that is how it works. Rarely is a high-rank drop necessary to progress though. (The most annoying one I can think of is that one B-rank hat quest back in bergen.)
So happy to see you include Ultrakill on this channel
I will talk about it whenever I can haha
A little disagreement I have with around 3:30 is that while I can look it up, it is no longer my story. When I player Undertale I had already seen the major routes done before, but I hadn’t done it. I hadn’t put in the work to spare every monster.
.
Whilst yes, certain difficult sections can hid story and be much more accepted, there’s a difference in the standards expected of the player. In the normal sections I am not expected to beat 42 bosses in a row.
I don’t look up endings to games I own because I see it as equivalent value, I look up endings because the game has utterly failed to retain my determination and drive.
I have learnt a lot of life lessons from games, from being the character rhat I control, I have seen a lot of situations that have influenced how I treat people today and almost none of the lessons I have learnt would have the same impact without the journey I took.
Do you think that your videos conclusions would stand tall without the preceding arguments?
Other than that I agreed for rhe most part. But creations are like any other product. By buying a game, I gain the authority to criticise it, if I bought a car and something in it could function better I would be fine to fix it, sure I could catch public transport and get to the same destination, but it isn’t even nearly the same experience. I am paying to experience these games and some creators are putting roadblocks in place that are so far beyond the roadblocks that are elsewhere that it doesn’t line up with the product I was advertised in the first few hours, when I could return it.
true, but the thing is you already get your ending with the easiest one, if you cant do the challenge to get an optional ending cutscene how is that the games fault? you already were rewarded for the amount of effort you cared to put in
@@Pogobro First of all thanks for responding.
While true and honestly fair enough as a viewpoint there are adjustments that games can make for people that want a different experience. You've already mentioned how difficulty settings exist in games with collections colouring pins by difficulty, however games like Psychonauts 2 make adjustments beyond that by having optional modes that can even make you invincible.
By no means am I saying that all games should have invincibility modes, that would be rather silly, but Hollow Knight for instance could have a slider that puts in checkpoints in that boss rush every 2 or 3 bosses, with a separate completion event for deathless runs of the 42 boss gauntlet, allowing players who might simply not be as good at the game to engage with the content and have a better opinion of it, they still have to beat all of the bosses, which requires learning them and becoming competent, but the time investment lowers dramatically if you just want the content of the cutscene and not the achievement of completing it without deaths. After all I died plenty of times in Hollow Knight and it didn't make me redo every single boss and event in the game every time. There is forgiveness in the system, there could be options for more in regards to younger players, or those with disabilities without inhibiting the challenge and achievement of those who are better, or invest more time.
I could demand the players to spend 2 weeks of their life (free time specifically), to achieve a challenge, and it could line up with what they like. And they might only need to complete it once for a piece of content, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find many players stick through it if they don't find it rewarding as an experience. They might however be willing to dedicate a couple days with checkpoints so that they have a consistent sense of progression and each little burst of bosses, or challenges, remains hard for them, but still lets them avoid pitfalls and spirals of annoyance.
I can't personally see why that option wouldn't exist, to let players customise the experience to suit them better.
You made a lovely point, and I hope my perspective is at the very least interesting to you :D
@@mrartistimo1530 as someone that plays games for the story, I can sort of agree with you. I understand why it's very frustrating, I was stuck at pure vessel for a week and hate ummu in p5. The reason I think they shouldn't implement this is because the hall of gods exists, once you fight a certain boss once you can practice its move set, see what build you are more comfortable with and beat the boss without the stress of beating 23 bosses and getting killed because you are only repeating over and over p5 without breaks or practicing a boss.
I had to beat pure vessel 7 times in the hall of gods before I felt comfortable trying p4, and I still failed twice before I was able to kill pure vessel.
I perfectly understand the frustration of p5 as I have not even reached nightmare king Grimm in the pantheon. I would like to have proper checkpoints in the pantheon but I understand why they are not there, the point of the 4 and 5 endings is seeing the god of gods. You see said god beat every single god in hollownest before even showing how it actually looks like.
I believe that story wise it makes a lot of sense but gameplay wise it can be frustrating. I like p5 because of sisters of battle and how you need to master, or at least know all of their moves and how to react accordingly, all the bosses to see the new endings. I am still trying p5 to show myself I've gotten better at the game. If people don't like p5 I understand since it can be very frustrating becuase you need to kill every boss back to back without dying, but I believe that it exists to show yourself that you have mastered the game mechanics
The edits are me being bad at english
@@user-mo6wo2mk9m Heya there, I'm afraid I can't give too much of a comment back as I haven't gotten a chance to fully play through Person 4 or Persona 5, but if I do I'll hopefully remember to come back and give a proper reply later.
A lot of finale's in games (especially level based ones), exist as a jack of all trade's level where the player is expected to utilise the knowledge and skills gained throughout their playthrough, I personally have no issue with the concept (hell Hollow Knight and Undertale both utilise it in spades for endings).
But showing mastery is a bit misleading, it's more showing competence. If we expected every player to eventually get to the level for esports professionals, I imagine games would get a lot less inclusive in a hurry :D
Also your english seems fine to me, would never have pegged it as anything other than natural if it's a second language you've picked up so lovely work there!
@@mrartistimo1530 by p4 and p5 I was talking about pantheon 4 and 5, pantheon of the knight and hollow nest.
Also thanks for the english complement I usually don't comment because I need to re read every thing I write in english
One part of the whole master round gungeon-thing is that it allows you to unlock elevators to skip the floor, only if you perfect it. The ladder part is literally literal, not skill wise, but as "i'm skipping this easy boss so i can get to the boss i struggle, sooner". It does kinda make it harder as you only get 1 gun for skipping a floor, while if you do that entire floor, you can get all of the rewards that might help with the next one. It's a very Risk (dying because you have a shitty gun that a rat gave you) vs Reward (because it's spared you about 5 minutes)
yeah I really only unlocked the elevators to get to boss rush, I enjoy the game enought that starting from floor 1 every time is fun!
@@Pogobro yeah it’s so fun starting over 🥲🥲
@@Lunarbuh no seriously it's more fun than elevators, because the weapon you get as skipping a floor compensation is significantly worse than if you just went and did the floor, so you can play with more funny guns and stuff
DMC 3 and 5 are probably my favourite games that I enjoy playing on harder difficulties with all of my skills unlocked
I never imagined cuphead and ultrakill put in a thumbnail together.
when I was making the video I kept laughing at the Doom chainsaw kill to cuphead transition
@@Pogobro Yeah that's wild lmao
Mirror's Edge. You start out jankily hopping from point to point, running into ledges etc. But every now and again you get a couple of steps perfect, and the sense of flow makes you want to go back and do it again. By the time you're getting pretty good, that sense of movement is persistent and ever enjoyable. Combined with legitimately nice visual and audio design just stringing together moves becomes its own reward.
I really feel Issac is underappreciated in that regard. Devil/angel rooms (and perfection trinket) aside, it also rewards players with MORE GAME. You start with one character and run up to Mom. Beating her once unlocks next floor and difficulty spikes because there you take double damage and shops and treasure rooms disappear. While taking that first kill you probably unlocked three-four new characters to try out and a handful of new items. Kill new final boss a handful of times and you unlock two new new final bosses and the first "challenge" character. You keep running, unlocking more progression, more characters (both challenging and not really), new bosses, alternative routes, and, obviosly, more items. I feel it's mosty done to keep a new player from being overwhelmed, but you unironically start with like 5% of the game available to you.
I dont think its underappreciated, its already been talked to death which is why I didnt mention it much :)
Dead Cells and Hollow Knight are my hard games of choice. In Dead Cells, I have a currently perfect challenge portal record. In Hollow Knight, I've managed to beat the game, but I'm gearing up for The Pantheon of Hallownest.
Nice! My 2 favorite games too! Good luck with 5bsc and POH.
5bc looks way harder than P5 so i think you can do it
@@m4rcyonstation93 I disagree. Killed secret 5bsc boss hitless, but have not been able to beat P5.
@@chetacheese2789 Idk personally i beat P5 decently easily and can barely even do 0BC
Personally I love the SMT series where its difficult but if you learn the press turn mechanic and study the boss, you can go from being ohko'd by the boss to making the boss unable to attack you without doing nothing/healing you/ or hurting itself
Library of Ruina has got to be one of those games I love specifically for the difficulty and the corresponding reward. The game will not shy away from skill checking you with hard boss fights that are there to test if you've been paying attention to mechanics and trying to squeeze as much power out of the cards/passives you have. But if you manage to master it, the amount of ways you are just allowed to whoop someone's ass with abno/EGO pages are near infinite and you feel like your nuggets have risen to godhood
The prequel to it, Lobotomy corporation also has a story that feel a lot more rewarding because of how unfair and hard the gameplay can be at time.
But the way the story integrate the fact that you'll have to reset again and again and again and again, into something that is really being done by A, make it that without the difficulty it would make the ending feel less earned as you have to go though X hardship to see it.
Yeah its fun
Gameplay is Better than lobotomy for me
I really enjoyed what I played of Library of Ruina both gameplay and story despite having not played Lobotomy Corporation, however I feel the design of combat is almost antithetical to the design of a card game, in a card game you have 1 goal, drop the enemy health to 0, this 1 goal can be achieved in countless ways, whereas in Libraria of Ruina every encounter is designed like a puzzle with only a few solutions that are viable, thats something you'd expect perhaps in an RPG, but not a card game
It's an amazing game but I feel like the game makes so many options completely unviable to the point of making me as someone who likes to make min maxed character builds annoyed by the fact that the build will likely be useful for like 1 mission and then become dog shit after that
@@unluckystaravia2352 As someone who played the game intensively, yes there is some fight where some mechanic don't work that well, (I'm looking at smoke against smoke in particular.) But most fight are overhaul easy to beat with a normal strats, it's only in abnomalities where you need to work around it. And even then OP builds can cheese the boss most of the time.
@@The_Knowledgeseekers Yeah I'm mostly talking about abnormalities, the main game is pretty fair but abnormalities I don't find all too fun in gameplay, the lore and visual spectical I still enjoy though, main reason I bought the game was cause a friend streamed a fight with a shadowy abnormality on discord to me and the dialogue that popped up combined with the enemy design, the music,, and just everything made the atmosphere so inticing that I couldn't help but buy the game
People should say when someone's bad " in sorry for your lost"
Excellent video and great points made! I find it very cool how so many different games have different solutions to the same problems, and they all work well in their own ways
Yeah, like for example how 2D Game Bossfights only really have a limited plane to work with yet so many games somehow make their fights seem unique
So the games resolve players' skill issues by giving a proper incentives to players to overcome their skill issues. Got it.
If only that worked for me
@@pleasegoawaydude practice more. Record yourself and analyse what you are doing wrong. Everyone can improve and gain skills.
I beat hollow knight with nearly 60 percent game completion out of pure spite.
I told my friend I did not like the game play in general and was accused of not playing it right and being told I'm probably just not good at it.
So I beat the whole thing (which let me say the only real problem I had was fighting the watcher knights) and a bunch of not required things just cause.
I can still say it's only alright not my kinda game.
It's good if you enjoy those types of games, it's honestly one of my favorite games since I enjoy the challenge and not being able to beat pure vessel for a week
@@user-mo6wo2mk9m I've beat elden ring 4 times trust me im no stranger to getting stuck on bosses
yeah, hollow knight just feels stale and boring, yes I've beat it, just not my kind of game
@@h_oom4114 thank you. I even love Metroidvanias, but Hollow Knight brings absolutely nothing new to the table. I can see why people would like it if it was one of their first few forays in the genre, but it's really just mediocre. Not bad, not great. Just right in the middle.
@@bbbbbbb51 I'm sorry, but the game is not mediocre. Even of you don't like it you have to accept it's a very, very good game
Skul is a total sleeper hit.
I really love Furi's method of rewarding the player, it is very very simple but the higher rank you get on a fight the more a piece of concept art is revealed to you relating to that boss fight. Also the special method at the end of beating the game on hard mode is fantastic
I agree with a lot of your points, also to answer your question on why beat your head against a wall for something you can look up, it's probably different for everyone. In my case, the simplest way I can put it is: Extreme Self Loathing.
It isn't the game/activities fault I can't do it right, I got nobody but myself to blame for my shortcomings. So I opt to ram my head against the wall until it shatters or I lose the will to keep trying. The only real issue is when I practice for way too long just to see 0 or lacking results from it.
It's not so much games that reward high skill level that bothers me, but rather the games that require a high skill level to function at the base level. I don't feel rewarded by a game that asks for all my attention to do the smallest things, I just feel drained.
There are games that have plenty to engage with at a lower skill level, but until the basics are ingrained as second nature, the finer skill points cannot be forced into the hands of the unprepared. You will only cut yourself on that blade, only to set it down when you cannot hold it any longer.
completely agree and i feel like this isnt talked about a lot. i played portal 2 with my girlfriend and we managed to get through several levels, but some of the levels we just could not figure out (we got by when we looked up a solution). maybe it's because neither of us had played portal 1, but we both agreed that too many different concepts were being thrown at us when we were just trying to get comfortable to begin with. it really killed some of the fun for us and we havent played since
@@cadenhenderson4322 well that's mostly because the tutorial for all those concepts are in the singleplayer mode rather than the co-op mode.
Monster hunter is my favorite game that can either be a nightmare to someone who doesn't know what they're doing, or a breeze for a seasoned hunter. Doing all your prep and packing your items with three friends and a plan feels so good
Pogobro: Shows Silksong footage.
The entire Hollow Knight community: "Why must you hurt me this way?"
Almost 5 years ago, I bought Enter the Gungeon on my PS4. As of now, it is the only game I have 100 percented and it was initially so challenging that I could never make it past the first chamber until I got over my skill issue and rolled through every chamber with little effort. I mastered the dodge roll mechanic they handed me and have no issue dealing with behemoths like the Kill Pillars or the Resourceful Rat secret boss. Seeing myself get better at the game is an experience I probably won't go through for a while unless I can find another game I'm willing to throw myself at, Gungeon has become a favorite of mine and one I cannot recommend more to people into the rougelike/rougelite genre of games.
Well done, king. 👑
i realy like hollow knight, beating a boss that you strugled on just... makes you feels so good and like a god.
the funniest part is that the godseekers literally begin to believe you are a god after beating the pantheons
@@matthewyacono1969 yeah and I like how at first they call you a "cringer", so the player's just like "aight imma prove them wrong", and the godeeskers then start to respect you.
Got ultrakill the other week, and it’s already one of my favourite games of all time. It’s almost like it’s fun in it’s purest form - I love every second of that game.
The more you play it - the more you will like it.
6:08 Loosely?
My Brother In Christ it is one of the most accurate depictions of the divine comedy there is in Gaming.
I've always liked rpg games that give you more xp and higher quality loot for playing on harder difficulties.
The higher difficulty means you'll spend more time on each fight but the better rewards means you won't have to fight as often.
Absolutely this! I'm tired of "harder" difficulties in RPG being enemies having more HP and dealing more damage while you deal less damage AND you get reduced EXP and other rewards. If you're going to make me expend more resources enemies should be worth more EXP and other rewards.
Halfway through cuphead right now, kicking my ass but at the same time beating these bosses and especially the run n gun levels is awesome
I remember yesterday of how happy I was when I defeated the dragon boss, seriously fuck that boss, the only boss that feels bullshit lol, all frustration that I had converted into happiness and gladness after beating it, now I see what accomplishing a challenge is
OMG I’m in a pretty far zone in the game now but ThAT DRAGON took 2 MONTHS my lord, gg dude
Great video, I love enter the gungeon so much
A great example of this is *Dead Cells*
In dead cells you get a Boss Cell (BC) each time you beat the final boss with the previous BC active, and with each BC the game becomes more challenging, but also more rewarding.
It's even better than ultrakill in that regard, because not only you unlock a secret final boss and level at the highest difficulty, you also unlock unique weapons, enemies, and routes.
It goes as far as making weapons MORE viable on the higher difficulties, compared to the lower, and NEVER the opposite.
You also get rewards for beating bosses no hit. It gives visual reward, cuz you get a nice achievement, a gameplay reward, cuz you get a guaranteed legendary item, and a gold skin for each perfected boss, for bragging rights.
To this day is still the best example i have of a game that gives the player more game the higher they rise the difficulty.
Hades makes you feel defenseless at first but the more you play and upgrade you slowly become a killing machine taking down bosses one by one with your god setup and beating hades makes it all the more satisfying especially on pact of heat.
I wish it had gotten dlc, but I certainly got my moneys worth out of it
@@Pogobro Yeah DLC would be amazing but i respect making a fully finished game and actually delivering quality content without years of updates just to make a game.
It felt amazing to beat Hades the first time, but it felt even better beating Hades on Extreme Measures 4
I would definitely say that the only challenge I dislike and honestly feel is poorly designed. Is the kind of challenge that is just an endurance test. HK P5 almost falls under this unfair challenge but it’s more relevant to P5 all bindings. Which is completely optional. There’s also Celeste golden strawberries and Cuphead S ranks. Cuphead bosses are super short so there rarely a moment of wasted time. Celeste deathless attempts are also optional and there’s still a lot of fun to be had by just playing.
Ultimately I don’t welcome locking content behind long extremely difficult challenges.
Neon White, it's movement mechanics just feel so great that even if I spend an hour trying to secret a level I never get bored
I was coming in here to mention Celeste and literally the first thing you show is Celeste. I just replayed it recently and it has to be hands down one of the most approachable games for anyone for how hard it is compared to most other games like it, while also offering some of the most brutal challenge for those who seek it. It's brilliantly designed
great vid. hollow knight was to tough for me but after watching this i should give it a second chance
there are mods that can make it easier if you are on pc!
@@Pogobro o that would be helpful ty
The reason people bash there head over it is because they want to see/earn it for themselves not everyone is happy with taking the easy road in life and just giving up and looking at someone else's achievement also like most things in life it's easy to get into a bad mindset and feel like things are against you or that things are unfair after exhausting yourself again and again trying to achieve something.
Also, I'm personally of the opinion that everything a game is supposed to offer should be accessible within the game itself. You shouldn't *have* to look up a video or download a mod to see the ending or whatever. That's why I feel Celeste is peak design (no pun intended) where accessibility is concerned; the game encourages players to push their limits, but it also ensures no part of the story is ever truly locked behind a difficulty barrier.
@@cyberfoxvii6253 Everyone keeps saying that about Celeste, but I tried it and I struggled for three hours without improving, because I'm just that bad.
It's always so depressing to hear people talk about getting good at games, because I never have. I've been consistently bad at every game I've ever played, including games I've pumped thousands of hours into.
God, y'all are so lucky.
@@pleasegoawaydude Well, what I'm talking about is Celeste's Assist Mode. It has various options for making the game easier; you can even have infinite dashes and invincibility (even against falling) if necessary. You should at least be able to experience the game's story that way.
I don't know what advice I can give about your wider-scope problem... other than maybe a change of genre? There are strategy and puzzle games out there that give you all the time in the world to make decisions, no reflexes required! Opus Magnum is one I like; it presents engineering problems, and there's no one correct solution to any of them. You're encouraged to find _efficient_ solutions, sure, but even a horrendously inefficient one will allow you to advance, as long as it works (and it's so very satisfying to watch your creations run!).
Wow. I just found you because of your membership to fireborn xD. Great Video! Worth a subscription
Oh I love fireborn, will throw on his streams on a second monitor when I work and stuff
5:08 im playing ultrakill while watching this and as soon as you said ultrakill i got the ultrakill style combo
Although it's apparently in Pre-Alpha, I'd really love to know what the game shown at 8:10 is. I feel like I've seen it on Twitter at some point.
I second this, the animation got me glued to the screen in an instant.
It's called Project Terra
@@b4c0n_89 thank you!
Furi is really good at teaching you to be super skilled
Rythm games like Cytus 2 or OSU are basically built upon you getting so skilled in a game that you start wondering if there could be anything better to be so good at
Furi was amazing! S tier soundtrack as well
Cytus has an amasing amount of visual clues and feedback. I've been max combo-ing some levels on chaos, and only recently I noticed that the tap orbs and sliders have this vague aura that helps you get the timing just right. That is on top of radial progress bars on hold orbs and different colors for orbs depending on whether the bar goes up or down.
If you want your players to get good at your game at a good pace where they are continuously immersed, give them immediate feedback. It's the backbone of learning process as a whole. (And it's why I don't like cs:go even though the guns do give off a powerful feeling. Can't see where the bullets are going or where your gun is looking)
Playing Risk of Rain 2, I had like 20, 30, maybe 40 hours of understanding what are mobs doing, what items have which effect, where I can get this or that item, and especially how to beat bosses, deal with every mechanics of the game and things. Honestly the most satisfying grind I had on a skill based game. Having to win my first game after 40 hours, after discovering more and more mechanics at the final boss fight that screwed me every time, was honestly one of the BEST feelings I had in my video game history
Tbh I wish I could enjoy ror2 as much as you did. I simply don't find it enjoyable when I can't find the teleport to the next stage. Spent 30 mins on stage 2 trying to find the exit.
A good game to note that rewards good skill is CrossCode. This game is a story driven action RPG with fun, challenging combat that doesnt cheap out on the difficulty, but they get around the difficulty by adding damage sliders so most people can experience the story. With the damage sliders, you can change how much damage you take and how much health an enemy has. As you reach the endgame however, you unlock the battle arena, which lets you play cups, which is a collection of enemy and boss gauntlets you can complete. You get scored on how good you did in the cup which will result in either bronze, silver, gold, or platinum. Whats cool about this though is the rewards for getting good scores. Cups reward you with points that allow you to get the best gear in the game, which isn't necessary for beating the game, but they offer unique perks to spice up gameplay if you shoot for these items. CrossCode is my favorite indie, I wish more people would play it :(
I think I'm at the point where I just want to feel Cool when playing a game. While it isn't a necessary prerequisite for a game to be difficult / hard to master in order to give that Rule of Cool, but interestingly enough, I think it's just really hard to design any game where you can feel Cool without really bringing any of your own expertise to the table. If the visual and audio feedback of your punches is meaty and feels great, that itself is innately enjoyable, but it'll wear off at some point if the only thing you're doing to achieve that reward is mashing Spacebar. (That said, I wish there were more games that could find the balance of getting enjoyable animations and feeling like a cool guy without me investing 200 or 1000 hours into practicing the game (might be only possible in singleplayer games, but some fighting games can get away with this too))
There is an emotional fallacy that being good or bad at a game makes you a better or worse person. Related to this, there is another emotional attachment to the expression "git gud", which is literally what you need to do in order to pass certain skill challenges.
Yeah while it doesnt make someone better or worse as a person, if someone beats a challange I cant...they are better at than me at this topic.
And most skill challanges can only be beaten with skill, so the only response is "practice more."
Its like running races, if someone beats me, they are better at running, and the only advice they can give is "run faster" or "its not that hard actually if you keep trying."
@@carpedm9846 - agreed, yet many people take offense to the truth.
Everyone is better than me at video games, and I hate the fact that no matter how smart I am, or how skilled I am in the real world, I'll always be shit at every game I play.
@@pleasegoawaydude and there are people who cant play music or draw or what have you.
Theres no shame in going "ah yeah Im not that good at this" and still doing the thing.
I personally cant play music. Pianos especially have too many unmarked buttons that its wild to me that anyone could know what they are let alone figure it out precisely in the moment. But given the chance Ill still tap a 2 key rhythm in which I just go a-b-a-b-a-a-b. Its not good, but Im just fidgeting and having fun.
Similarly, games are, to have fun. You should pick a game you have fun playing and play that.
I got interested in to harder games that reward perfecting them by getting much better at Super Smash Brothers Melee which is the most rewarding game I have played because being able to beat players that used to beat you feels so good, and you can really see the improvement when you practice your tech skill one day and the next your noticeably better because of the work you put in
Skill is its own incentive, there is no better reward than the friends we lost in pursuit of perfection
The problem with 'skill issue' and 'git gud' and other statements like it, is that there's a difference between bragging about being better than someone and saying, 'you're not making any glaring mistakes, you just need to learn how to more efficiently do what you're already trying to do.' Souls-likes are a great example
It depends on how the person responds , if the person that is struggling isn't complaining that it's the games' problem but their own , people will usually be willing to give advice and be encouraging .
However if the person is saying this game sucks its too hard then people are far more likely going to make fun of them .
That game journalist that played Cuphead deserved to get clowned on , how can somebody with supposedly 20 years of gaming experience play like its the first time they held a controller in their life , the dude spent like 10 minutes on the tutorial and couldn't beat the first level after like 30+ minutes of attempts , if people like those review video games how is anybody suppose to take video game journalists seriously , they are already a big joke as it is .
@@saula8948 I'm sorry, but I disagree with your take on the Cuphead journalist. If you take a look at the description of the original video, that guy actually did not have 20+ years of experience with platformers.
Also, it's logically fallacious to assume that just because someone isn't an expert on something, that their opinion isn't valid, because even someone who isn't an expert at something can point out flaws or kinks in something, as well as recognize things that are good.
But honestly? The guy who was playing Cuphead in that footage wasn't even responsible for reviewing the game, so there's no point in getting upset. The reason they even posted that video to begin with was because they found it amusing, not because it was supposed to be taken seriously.
But you and many others took it seriously anyway. Hell, I did, until I read the description of the original video.
Honestly, I think game journalists are getting overhated these days, while some criticism towards games journalists is definitely warranted, it seem likes a lot of people take what they say out of context, and mislead others, making them arguably just as bad as the game journalists they criticize, if not worse.
If we keep holding game journalists to a perfect standard, and then start issuing hate and misleading others into doing the same, they never will. Honestly, even if we were constructive, they never will. Game journalists are human, unfortunately for them, and considering the pressure their companies put on them to review games fast (now this is something worthy of criticism, but towards the companies paying these journalists, rather than the journalists), it's only to be expected that they won't always be good at the games they play.
Not that it matters, because, game journalists really aren't supposed to be experts at playing video games. They're supposed to experts at reviewing them.
Do the two go hand in hand? Not necessarily, and I don't think it should be expected that is. At the end of the day, a lot of us play video games for passive enjoyment. It doesn't really make sense to me to expect game journalist's to be good at beating Dark Souls without taking damage. I do expect them, however to be fair at analyzing and reviewing the challenge present in the games they play, regardless if they're good at it or not. Other than unhelpful "it's too hard," or related vague complaints.
The Sonic Unleashed review by IGN is still one of the worst reviews I've ever seen, because they don't provide good enough reasons for the bullshit they spouted.
@@Orange_Swirl I disagree with a lot of what you wrote but I am not devoting 2 hours of my time explaining why , if you want we can have a chat on discord and I will explain why I disagree with you in detail .
@@saula8948 See, the problem is that even though I know it's my fault I'm bad, your group usually acts like I'm making a personal attack at their favorite game.
@@pleasegoawaydude Nope , that is not me at all . I belong to no group , I belong to myself only . I am very critical of many games that I like and not just blindly praising it to the heavens and the more times I play and beat those games the more flaws I see with them and become even more critical .
However if you're bad then complaining that its too hard is going to get you nowhere . People will make fun of you , especially if you blame the game rather than yourself .
First of all why the hell do you care about what strangers on the internet think about you , any reason why you should give even the slightest damn ?
There are thousands of games to play if certain games are too hard for you , if you're not willing to invest time to get better or both then play something else , simple as that .
Ok my issue with: "If they beat a challange or overcome and obstacle they feel superior to people who havent" is that, they are.
They are factually, provably, better at the game than others are.
Fireb0rn and CrankyTemplar doing absurd Hollowknight mods, showcases how much better at the game they are than I am. Me, beating hitless NKG shows I am better at the game than my friend.
thats the whole point of challanges, its to test your skill and 9/10, the only help you can get is "get good" or "well its not that hard if you-".
How do you beat NKG hitless? Its easy. You just get used to its attacks, all of its attacks can be dodged reliably, and the arena "resets" after every move, as long as you learn to keep your cool, you can do it.
That advice still falls into the parameters of "well its actually easy" and "get good". Because its a skill challange. To beat a skill challange you gotta have good skill.
Thats like saying "oh, people who win sprinting races think thwy are so much better and when someone asks for help they just say 'run faster' or 'its not hard if you keep practicing' and think they are better at stuff than others"
Any sane person understands that the person who achieved something in some field is better than who has not achieved anything in said field.
Skill issue is real as it merely points to the lack of skill of a particular person to do a particular thing.
Being toxic is a whole another issue. (it is called being a gamer :p)
The problem is that I have to fucking worry about it.
@@pleasegoawaydude I fail to see a problem. You have control over what you care and worry about.
A lot of the points brought up in this video are what make competitive games so enjoyable to me. It's a similar concept really, you are mastering a game to earn an exceptional reward, beating strong opponents in competitive games sort of give a similar reward for me as completing a level on the hardest difficulty if that makes sense.
After returning to Terraria to try out new update and summoner class for the first time, I have found the Empress of Light a very fun bossfight to perfect because if you fight her during daytime all of her attacks one shot you but if you manage to kill her you get one of the best weapons in the game.
What i like about her is that the fight does not rely on rng and it all comes down to memorization of her patters and perfecting your inputs.
Each attempt (i needed like 70) feels valuable because you know you won't die to random bullshit (cuz there is no random bs) if you keep playing right.
if they do terraria 2 I hope the bosses are like Empress of Light, you are right it is a REALLY good fight
Git Gud. (you see, this is a funny and expected joke that works with the context of this video. Now laugh)
Fun story with Ultrakill and me personally:
I have a processing imparment, which basically means my brain dosn't quite work as normal (kinda like dyslexia, but with more. I tell people that I'm basically 10 frames slower than everyone else).
I have issues with lots of skill based games, where if I don't have fun to begin with, I simply just don't have a good time (for example, DMC and Souls games are simular levels of hard on my brain, yet I have fun with DMC)
Ultrakill was rewarding enough to convince me to actually sit down and learn the game, to the point where I'm a somewhat compitant speedrunner, and slowly working my way through P-ranking all of act 1
thats awesome! Ultrakill just has something special going for it
fr, I legit had to learn insta rocket mount rewarding me with a higher cyber grind score due to the large amount of saves, pretty much solved my game mechanic issue
I'm currently playing Spark the Electric Jester 3, and I've never felt a stronger need to 100% complete a game before. The gameplay loop swaps between speed, exploration, and combat in such a way that I don't get bored going through the same stage those 3-4 times to unlock the speed, score, and exploration medals.
seeing ultrakill mentioned in videos like that makes me so happy the game is finally getting the atention it deserves
Im something of a ultrakill guy myself
Heresy 1 has to be the best level in the game yet
@@Pogobro honestly yeah, but im sold over by Ship of fools, that music its fucking nuts
The phrase, “That’s a skill issue” has become my catchphrase
I've started Hollow Knight something around 2 months ago. I'm about 103% on the way to completion, and while I love it, I can't deny I'm not really GOOD at it. Even at the best of times I take tons of damage against bosses and have to stop and recharge a lot and I just gave up at the start on the Pantheons, in which I'm cheesing my way through thanks to the Invincibility Glitch™ (and I've already set a very strict limit to it: ONLY THE PANTHEONS, everything else I'm beating it legit). It took me hours to beat the Path of Pain (two of which were on THE LAST STRETCH OF IT) and I'm struggling a lot on the Trial of the Fool. But, even by exploiting the IG™ in the Pantheons, I'm not giving up. Even if I suck ass at it, I'm getting that 112% and that Platinum sooner or later.
My absolute favourite game that is kind of like this is celeste. Its hard but if you beat every challange given to youbyou can get so much lore out of it as well as things to flex about lol
Interesting. In my opinion, having story content locked behind some sort of difficulty spike is super annoying. As someone who has beaten the kh3 final mix bosses, I sympathize completely with people who looked it up online or just went to easy mode. Imo it is a negative on the games end for hiding story content behind harder endgame fights where I think it the rewards should be more cosmetic.
I think it depends what audience the developers are looking for. If a mario game had a special cutscene that only played when you do something perfectly, that would defeat the point of the game. However in a game like elden ring having a bunch of different convoluted and confusing to get endings is probably a good idea
@@icedragon9097 I think I see what you mean, but to me, the kind of players that 100% things or complete the hardest challenges would already be satisfied by the challenge itself and having conquered it. So I would think even the small special cutscene that plays for doing something super difficult would be enough for someone. As for the elden ring take, I haven't played the game, but having something special for doing each ending would be sick.
skill issue
I've recently started playing crosscode, and it's been extremely difficult as the game asks you to do very difficult things from the start, and the enemy avatars are often bettet than you in skill pretty much always. However once you get past that difficulty and start getting used to it, it's surprisingly fun and satishfying beating bosses. And while you don't get any rewards for playing better as far as i'm aware, but it does ask you to speedrun dungeons as the other charracters race with you
My game for this would be Sekiro
In 2020, Sekiro had a free update. A Boss Rush update. With 3 Gauntlets of boss rushes, and a final Gauntlet that encompasses every major boss in the game and can only be unlocked if you best the first 3 gauntlets
The first 3 Gauntlets had an enhanced version of an already existing boss at the end, and cannot be unlocked elsewhere
Dying to a boss means you start at square 1
Not as demanding as Ultrakill which asks that you perfect the game, but that was just as bold imo
Sekiro Melee combat is unparalleled
Most games aren’t hard, most people don’t want to take the time to learn mechanics or with elden ring dark souls etc take the game slow or avoid shit you don’t need to fight. There’s a mentality in gamers to destroy everything and some games you can’t just mindless hack at shit till it’s dead you have to think and actually use your Brain
Yeah if people can't master a video game then how are they going to get a career they're good at?
@@wefhen7708 This is such a fucking stupid statement. I suck at games, but practical skills and intellectual skills are a walk in the park. It's literally the primary reason I hate being bad at games, because I'm good at most other things.
We are not in a golden era of games. Also a games good or secret ending should never be locked behind a boss rush mode that is absurd. People play games like hollow Knight so that they can leave a negative review because its actually poorly designed and they went through the effort of beating the game so that they aren't given the but you didn't play it how would you know treatment. Not because it's not the kind of game for them. The white palace or whatever it's called is a super meat boy excursion when you've been playing a metroidvania the entire time. That is bad design period.
pretty underrated. hope it blows up soon
thanks :) its okay if it doesn't, I dont make these specific videos for the views tbh
Ultrakill helped me alot in this, earlier, it took 5 minutes to turn my crosshair, now 1 second!
This whole video just sounds like a skill issue ngl
Wow what an original comment! Nice!
I use the "skill issue" proudly when someone just says the game its bad because is hard
I mean, some games are really unfair and sacrifice fun in the game for the sake of hardness, good example is Boshi and all of his clones
@@gorilla_2282 but a lot of people use this argument to argue games like the soulsborne series are bad, while they are extremely fair.
@@gorilla_2282 I wanna be the guy and I wanne be the Boshi aren't sacrificing fun, they are catering to a different type of player. In a similar vein to Jump King and Getting Over it. The point is that it feels like the game is actively trying to stop you from progressing so that overcoming it feels that much better.
First time I see someone using ProjectTerra clips. That's nice
neon white is also good in this, it wants you to get the best time possible in the lvl to get the ace medal and makes it fun by having short lvls and having instant respawn with no load times. you also unlock hints to shortcuts and the global leaderboard the faster you get.
It's weird how "skill" is always a stand-in for "mechanical skill", when mechanical skill is the least skillful part of the playing toolkit. By that I mean that your reactions can barely be trained and basic pattern recognition and the building of muscle memory isn't anything special. In other words: When gatekeeping Gamers (tm) talk about skill, they talk about something that isn't that special to achieve but for some people simply unachievable. It's like running - running is very easy to learn and you can certainly improve, but your personal "skill" cap is pretty much hard determined by your genes.
Now compare that to strategical skill - your Paradox games, strategy in general, TRPGs and perhaps even SDV which you used as a casual game. Perfecting those games is much much harder than any soulslike, because there is virtually no cap on how good you can get. "Good" in this case means knowledgable, efficient, fast (not necessarily quick). Even the best SDV or strategy players will make obvious mistakes, because perfecting the game means juggling so many things at the same time, that a perfect player will not be perfect because they know everything and succeed at everything, but because they know how to recover and improvise in a highly complex situation. And the beauty of it is that your mortal coil limits your abilities very little. Sure, if you lack the computing power to analyze situations, you will have a harder time, but experience can make up for it.
And that's just the answer to the "skill issue". A game doesn't get hard because the developer wants it to be hard, a game gets hard by having so much to offer that while everyone can beat it, beating it in certain ways requires creative thinking and deep knowledge. That's why I routinely roll my eyes at games that are advertised as "difficult" - because that's just a cheap shortcut and poor excuse for actual difficulty.
dead cells is is a personal favourite because after you beat the main story you get a boss stem cell that amps up the difficulty and effectively makes you learn the game again, with buffed enemies along with new enemies that will gladly ruin your day, plus you also get big sword by the end of the game which I like
my favorite is oldschool runescape's bosses. There are so many bosses that seem impossible when you start that you can eventually kill them in your sleep, and the longer you kill them, the more little tricks you learn to make killing them slightly more efficient. You get slightly more perfect with every kill, and eventually you start doing things that you'd think were insane when you first started as if they're nothing. In addition to the regular drops, bosses also have a one in several thousands chance of dropping a pet, which keeps players motivated even when they're rich enough to not care about the loot, and there are special achievements for killing bosses in extremely challenging ways that only a handful of players have completed all of.
One of my greatest achievements I've made as of now was beating the entire game on the highest difficulty over the span of 2 days, and then perfecting the first 15 levels within the next 2. From completing it on normal all the way up to even beating the secret boss on violent
One game I found fun to try and perfect is Frogun, a budget indie title on Steam, Switch and PS4/PS5. It's a 3D platformer where you use a grapple to navigate the levels, pick up and throw objects and enemies, and find your way to all the hidden collectibles. At the end of each level you get a Fly Emblem, which you can fill up by getting all the different collectibles in the level, providing a nice little visual reward for getting everything in the stage. One particular type of collectible, the Obsidian Skull, already does well to test your mastery of the mechanics by itself, as they're usually found within a tricky hidden mini-gauntlet similar to the N. Brio and Cortex Bonus Stages from Crash Bandicoot.
But there's two spots on the emblem that aren't filled up by just getting collectibles. Instead they're filled by completing a Time Trial, and finishing the level without dying. I think the Time Trial in particular is great, because it tests your knowledge on the key skills the game teaches you by recontexualising them. Frogun is largely centred around observation, as in the main game you'll be looking all around for visual clues on where to find collectibles and how to get them. In the Time Trial, you're still encouraged to be observant, but you're now looking for different things. You're mostly looking for alternate routes and things to grapple onto in order to get around faster and skip huge chunks of the level, which feels oh so satisfying to get right. I suppose the Deathless bonus also kinda rewards mastery if you're able to preserve yourself throughout the whole stage, but the Time Trial is much more fun. Plus, since a successful Time Trial usually requires a deathless run, you'll most likely get both bonuses at the same time anyway.
TL;DR Frogun's Time Trials are great in testing your skills by forcing you to use them in a different manner, and the visual rewards are a good incentive to attempt them in the first place. Recontextualisation of mechanics and key skills is a good way of testing how well the player truly understood them.
im listening to the ultrakill section like you try restarting cry for the weeper and in the wake of posidon over and over just to prepare for the act to prime sanctum and then talk to me
Woah, I wasn't expecting to see project Terra in here, if only for a moment! Can't wait for that game to release, CrossCode was so good
rain world is my favorite game of all time, and the most satisfying to master imo. getting yourself stuck in a location with mechanics you barely understand Will get you stuck for a while, and result in a lot of deaths, but you Will get out of it and learn a lot along the way, which makes progressing after getting unstuck much easier and more exciting (since you've been stuck in one area for possible hours). while it doesn't check all of your potential reward boxes yet, it's getting a massive content update soon that will get it a lot closer. the update was originally started by modders who had mastered the game themselves and thought rain world needed more to do for players who've already mastered the game, and exhausted it's (pretty long) replay value. based on that, and update teasers (which include a challenge mode and new playable characters with new and exciting mechanics for each) the new content is likely to take advantage of rain worlds more obscure mechanics and reward players further for learning them.
I love difficulty, especially in games that have mechanics I enjoy, which is why I have have gone through path of pain on every playthrough of hollowknight I've done including my steel soul speedrun attempts.
Completing celeste farewell will forever be one of the best moments in gaming for me
I love the perfection trinket in isaac repentance.
It's decently hard to get but really hard to keep without an item like Holy mantle. Ignoring lost and t lost.
I haven't played ultrakill, but celeste is one of my favorite games ever and it also nails the "reward the player's growth with more game" mindset. If you're good enough to find the cassettes in the A-side levels, you get to play more difficult B-side levels. if you beat all of the B-sides, you get access to the even more technically demanding C-side levels, and if you complete all of those, then you get to play through the game's 9th and final chapter that combines everything the game has taught you, as well as some new things on top of that, in by far both the longest and most technically challenging level in the game. If even that isn't enough for you, the game also has optional collectables that become available after the C-sides that challenge you to beat the game's levels deathless, which even I, as someone who adores the game, have no intention of doing for every level
When I see people struggling at a part in a game im really good at (especially if they are streaming it) I usually try to give tips to help them get passed it instead of just saying to "git gud" it is usually just as rewarding to see my tips work for other people as it is beating that section myself.
The problem with getting rid of "skill issue" is, like you said with Path of Pain in Hollow Knight, people will find things too difficult/unfun and equate that to bad design. Recently in ULTRAKILL, the Whiplash (grapplehook) got nerfed due to being a low-skill, easy-to-rely-on catch all for the gameplay loop.
This lead to many people who overused it to become 'worse' at the game: unable to beat previously beatable situations. Some adapted and overcame, (in my opinion) having more fun and being more skilled with the game in its 'intended' way, whilst others complained about the change, so much so that the game dropped from 9th highest rated on steam to 10th.
The only real way to get people accept the new change is saying "skill issue" and "git gud", as that is legitimately the solution to the problem (although, perhaps a tad reductive). If left unsaid, then it only reinforces the idea that the nerf was bad design and that it should be reverted, despite it arguable fulfilling the game's major focuses: skill and fun.
DS Series, Doom Eternal and Hollow Knight are the only games soo far that i got soo engaged with due to the ways the difficulty was structured that i 100%'d them, including the hardest challenges in each.
1:25 that transiotion GUH, juicy
New Game+ is always a good incentive of increasing skill while rewarding more game, and DMC 5 (I have yet to play the others I’m sorry) does this amazingly with its MULTIPLE NG+cycles where every level is revamped with new enemy encounters, plus there is the Bloody Palace, a timed gauntlet of increasing challenge where you are rewarded depending on how skilled you are at completing layers both quickly and without taking damage
This video reminded me a lot of NES games that used difficulty to lengthen the time a player had before they beat the game. Especially the ladder analogy, games like Super Mario Bros, would ask the player to start from the beginning after a game over in an effort to get the player to learn to explore the levels instead of just rushing through them. In order to explore a stage the player needs to have mastered the platforming mechanics. Once the player has learned the platforming and exploring mechanics then they can find the warp pipes to skip the parts of the game they don't need to learn from anymore.
Was genuinely expecting celeste from your build up lol
hehehe the jebait
ULTRAKILL immediately comes to mind as one of the best skill based games. but also i really like Blade and Sorcery, the VR game about, well, blades and sorcery. Getting good at blade and sorcery requires you to become physically good at the game because. well. vr and stuff.