On Dark Souls II and the Culture Surrounding Difficult Games - Sessler's ...Something

This week on Sessler's Something, Adam lays out his thoughts on the exclusionary culture surrounding difficult games, the delicate balance between "hard" and "easy," and the satisfaction that comes from completing games like Dark Souls II.

[PeaSFor]

sry but to me Adam have zero credibility talking about game difficulty, ...he was barely able to finish GOW:Ascension and whinned about it and made it look like it was "hard" when it was pretty normal to be honest.

[Timesplitter14]

He doesn't really get it. Dark Soul's difficulty's appeal isn't video game elitism. It's the fact that it's clever and that death is part of the design, and even the story.

Death in Dark Souls is a learning experience and it makes everything a thousand times more exciting.

[aliengmr]

Pretty sure he said that he wasn't including Dark Souls in his rant.

At least be fair before legions of fanboys run to the defense of Dark Souls, having not watched the video.

[Brucis]

While I agree that difficulty appeal isn't elitism Sessler also states he wasn't putting Dark Souls in that category as that series is about patience. He wasn't shitting on Dark Souls, in fact he seemed to understand it fairly well.

[MadLad]

You don't get it. This is blindly hate on Sessler time. This is where people, time and again, come to these articles to claim what he says doesn't matter and say he is irrelevant all the while, ironically, proving just the opposite in doing so.

[FriedGoat]

I didn't watch it, and will never watch any more of his stuff.

Ada-M$-essler lost all credibility after the whole resolution fiasco. Then he gives titanfall a perfect score further signaling him being in Microsoft's pocket. He even said that he doesnt like these types of game yet its perfect?

Not that titanfall is a bad game, it's just not a 10. I was in the beta and I found it fairly average.

[Hicken]

@SlapHappy: It's really not BLIND hate. There are rather valid reasons to hate on him. But, as with Pacther, being right a time or two doesn't fix your overall crappiness.

Sessler's words SHOULD have no weight, at this point. That they still do isn't due to the "blind haters," but to the people who still think him valid. There's nothing ironic in the actions of those who don't like him.

[MadLad]

@Hicken

His words don't matter, he is irrelevant, and yet people come to these articles and feel the need to make it seem so. If he was irrelevant and people didn't care what he had to say, regardless of whether they agree or not, they wouldn't be here in the first place.
And, let's be real here, the times that he has slipped up in any real way pales in comparison to the years of quality journalism he has under his belt. He says a few things people take offense to over the last year and now, at least on this site, he can go to hell, apparently.
And I bring up blind hate purely because of the whole jumping on him, obviously before watching the video, going at him for attacking a game (Dark Souls) that he clearly, in the video, puts off to the side as the antithesis of the types of games he is actually commenting on. Blind hate indeed.

[Timesplitter14]

@comments above
I will admit I only watched about 15 seconds of the video, in which he mentioned the word elitism.

This is my brain on Dark Souls hype.

I can't help it

[vickers500]

"Dark Soul's difficulty's appeal isn't video game elitism."

It is for some people. My friend absolutely loves Dark Souls, he still plays it HEAVILY to this day, like maybe 5-8 hours a day, and even he tells me that part of the enjoyment is the elitism he feels over everyone else who hasn't played it.

Then you have instances where, if someone criticizes the game in any way or says that they don't like it or want so and so feature to be added/removed from the game for it to be appealing to them, then SOME (quite a few I've noticed actually) of the more hardcore fans will automatically assume the person is a mindless shooter fan who must love call of duty and only plays generic and easy games and is a stupid casual blah blah blah (case in point Inceptions comment, where he jumped straight to an assumption based on NOTHING but the fact that Adam doesn't necessarily treasure the type of challenge that Dark Souls offers.

What I've observed online seems to be a trend of elitism, where if you haven't played or don't like Dark Souls, then you're automatically a casual gamer with horrible taste in video games. If you agree with this line of thinking, then sorry, but you are an elitist.

I played Demon's Souls, and while I respect it, I didn't like it very much. It had pretty decent gameplay, the atmosphere/tone/art direction/enemy design/soundtrack was fantastic, but personally I don't find enjoyment in playing the same section of a game over and over again, fighting the same enemies I've already beaten, to get it right and finally conquer a hard challenge, I don't get that feeling of extreme reward and joy that others do, all I get is a slight sense of relief that I'm done with that section and never have to replay it again, so obviously I wont be able to experience the essence of what the souls series is about if I can't find the same enjoyment that others do. So why spend tons of time trying to change myself when there's a TON of other interesting games out there I can play that I know won't frustrate me?

It's fine to love the game, just don't insult the people that don't care for it or think that you're somehow more of a gamer than they are because you're playing a harder game than they are. And I'm not speaking specifically to you, I don't know what you think of the whole elitism situation, though you can't deny there are quite a few Souls elitists. I don't think they make up the majority of the community, but they are definitely there, and are pretty vocal.

[A LIVING LEGEND]

Don't read too deeply into it,I mean it isn't like we're curing cancer here or anything of that nature.

[iceman06]

Speak for yourself!!!

[clouds5]

One thing: Dark souls is not all that hard if you figure it out. That's the beauty of it for me. At first you just die, but once you know all the secret weapons and hidden paths you get extremely powerful and kill bosses in a few hits. Because it was hard in the beginning it makes the endgame extremely rewarding.

[RyanShutup]

I used to love the Sess... but he's getting weird these days. I feel like he's always giving dad speeches, "now kids challenge comes from empathizing..." what? Sess, bro, most of us are adults, stop being condescending. It's like he literally speaks directly to trolls in every single video that he does.