Nintendo's 'Demo Play' planned for handheld games as well

I think the only people that have to scared by this are the folks at Gamefaqs.com. It my game featured this I might be tempted to use when I'm stuck instead of heading over there for a walkthrough.

I get the idea behind this, to make games more accessible to a larger audience, but in my opinion, there is something that would be a lot more useful, something that I like to call... Contrasted Difficulty Setting!

It's more than normal Difficulty Setting where the only difference between easy and hard is only a question of amount: "More enemies", "Less lives", "Less ammunition", "Enemies with higher stats" and etc... No, the Contrasted Difficulty Setting will alter the game's mechanic! Let's take a Mario game, let's say that the Normal difficulty is the one we all currently play, then, in the Easy difficulty, the player as limitless lives, if he gets hit or falls in a bottomless pit, he doesn't restart the entire level, only reappear the place he was before dying. And now, we could have an Hard difficulty, (to please all gamers that whine about video games becoming too easy) where to complete a level, you need a certain amount of points, or you need to find special items/coins or have a very tight time limit, there could also be more enemies and stuff...

Now, for an RPG...
Easy: The character levels up as the story progresses, not by killing enemies. The player is not forced to go through more complex mechanics to make his characters stronger (no weapon forging, no skill points to administrate...)
Normal: You can have level-grinding and item collecting if you want to become stronger, you must also go through the more complex mechanics if you want to be a match against the stronger enemies.
Hard: There are sub-quests available and a lot of other well hidden weapons, skills and stuff. You must also administrate your team and skill points carefully if you don't want to have your ass handed to you.

Zelda...
Easy: You have an arrow or something to show you where to go, Bow and Hookshot have an auto-aim. There are no hidden heart pieces to compensate for the weaker enemies. Bosses have only one stage and are easy to beat.
Normal: You need to explore and find things to match enemies. Bosses have a second stage where the way to beat them is less obvious.
Hard: You really HAVE to adventure, even in the most isolated places of Hyrule. Items and power-ups are really well hidden and are a lot more useful than before. Bosses have a third stage where they get some steroids and kick major asses.

Well, you get the idea, on Easy, the player has way less to worry about than on Normal. And on Hard, the player has to be very experienced and smart to get through the game.

Difficulty Setting is really great, but I feel like no game developers has ever take it to a next level.

I think the obvious rules are
1) those who want to use it CAN use it
2) those who dont want to use it DO NOT have to use it

You know what, the rules are totally fine with me. I dont ever want to use the demo play, but i'll never hate my lil sister (or my grandma) just because she gets to use it. I'll be happy for her actually. Let us both enjoy our games.

Somehow there's a group of gamers who become envious that less-competent gamers are given the chance to be helped in-game because now nobody can boast that they have completed a tough game. These ppl are sickening. period.

As long as this does not cause me any grief, I don't care. I do take issue with the ever decaying level of mental competence required in this world.

Games are supposed to be a challenge, give you and out while letting your mind work in creative ways. This may prevent saving and force you to do the required area anyway - but your mind is what has paid the toll. Instead of 'doing' and 'working it out', now you are 'emulating'.


Those of you holding onto the false hope of N games becoming harder as a result of this....dream on.

Seems we're flushing individual accomplishments down the drain in favour of a more homogenized society full of 'repeaters' and followers' that wish to permit someone else do the thinking for them. Know this - once you go down the road, you can't undo it.

I think demo play has the potential to work well. Take Zelda as an example. I played it for a while, put it down for 6 months or so, and picked it back up. Would have been nice to have something to remind me what to do next. Ever had a situation where you are just stuck and running around looking for what to do? I will occasionally just run around for 45minutes, then either give up or go to GameFAQs. "Oh, apparently I am supposed to go to that one room, randomly look straight up and use my hookshot..." I've played a lot of Zelda and can't ALWAYS figure out what the developers want me to do. Now I know I can just run to GameFAQs, but what if it's my girlfriend who is playing? Casual players aren't going to deal with that bullshit. Demo Play here we come!

If casuals really matters, couldn't Ninty think of tutorials instead of this stupid idea?

It is the Nintendo problem that people think their consoles (kiddy). Too easy, less complicated, and nothing challenging.

Why is the demo play feature being called controversial? If you want to use it, you use it. If not, shut the fuck up and don't use it. It certainly won't affect your enjoyment of a game. Unless you are too weak-willed to not use the feature when you get to a frustrating spot.

Sigh.
I'm all for it. More diversity is good, measuring e-penis, not so much.

I will not buy any game with this shitty "Demo Play" feature. If every Nintendo game gets this feature, then Nintendo is going to lose a long time customer.

Who gives a shit whether this is implemented or not? I don't need to use it so I won't. DONE!

Good points and you are right - not every game is awesome and sometimes does lead to those 'put it down' moments.

Games that aren't catching my attention like those you mention for me, tend to go away from me. I don't have lots of time anymore to be gaming - so I want my time to be enjoyable.

My beef with this, and I don't really mind that the feature will be there - I won't use it (famous last words), is that this takes away an element of challenge. Reduces your thinking about approaching a situation and can lead to less critical thinking.

Am I guilty of walkthroughs? Of course I am....but after I've tried and tried and obviously am missing something or am just plain sucking at the game - but reading it and mentally processing the info is a bit different than watching it be done - hence what I said when referring to 'emulating'. You no longer put out work to get the achievement, you watched it and emulated it.

I think there is a big difference. And if the game just is ho-hum, why invest your time into a mediocre title? You're worth more than that, we're worth more than that. We should not let someone else devalue our time, simply put - don't buy those types of games. Sure, you may not know it when you buy it - but we all know what trends different pubs and devs follow, you can build a trend of companies to avoid....unless that OMGBBQ title comes out that gets very high marks from your fellow core gamers.

Are we saying that games are too hard or people are too slow? That's a slap in the face, I slogged through Zelda in 1987 with nothing. Just a manual that came with the game - best memories of gaming ever, and the feeling of accomplishment does wonders for ones' self esteem. A good challenge is always welcomed.

Broken controls won't be helped by a demonstration of what to do.

This direction leads to further my belief that Nintendo should just be done with it and go head to head with LeapFrog.

I don't know, that just my thoughts on it.

Do nothing to not die.

Honestly I don't have a problem with this idea. If anything it allows them to make parts of games harder.

I dont' have any problem with this, it's not going to be mandatory anyways. I still think that younger gamers should be able to play by themselves though, like everyone did before them, it's not like games are harder now, it the opposite. Nintendo should encourage them to grow, instead of letting them go the easy way.

It would be good if they made different dificulties, and in harder ones this function can''t be used, like in FE10 where the save bewteen battles is replaced by a suspend option. Or maybe not a different dificulty but that before you start the game you can select if you will use this option through the game or not. This would be the perfect solution for those that don't want this option to exist.

Oh well, as long as this benefits me or doesn't affect me at all, I don't care

go nintendo go, the return of nintendo