10 Video Games That Mock Bad Players
Sometimes negative reinforcement works. Sometimes it just sucks.
We are in a very interesting time when it comes to the debate of difficulty in video games. The likes of Dark Souls, Hotline Miami and Cuphead have been flying the flag for super hard titles that are gloriously satisfying to overcome after the hours of blind rage that they can make you feel.
At the same time, there is the important discussion about accessibility and, on top of that, does a game have to be hard? Couldn't FromSoftware just put a few more difficulty modes into Bloodborne so that more players stood a chance to appreciate it? Or does that water down the appeal?
It's a debate for another time certainly but some video games know where they stand when it comes to the skill expected out of a player.
It's not enough for some video games to expect a certain level of expertise. Sometimes, a title has to rub salt into the wound by telling you just how big of a failure you are. You thought making the same mistake over and over again was bad, how about if the game pointed that out to you?
In this list, we'll be exploring video games that have injured you and then insulted you for not being up to their high standards.
10. Streets Of Rage 3
Whilst the second game in the series gets the most praise, Streets of Rage 3 released in the waning years of Sega’s 16bit console and provided a solid follow-up experience.
There’s two things that really stick the knife in with Streets of Rage 3’s “easy” mode. Like several titles of the era, Streets of Rage 3 ends early and removes its final few stages for its more inexperienced players.
At the end of stage 5 (of 7), the game comes to an unexpected end where most of the story strands aren’t resolved and the game badmouths you to boot. The defeated robotic boss of the previous stage slyly remarks “you play this game like a beginner” before ceasing function.
Firstly, this is clearly adding insult to injury for proud gamers who resigned themselves to playing on easy because they were struggling with the difficulty the game boots up with. However, in Japan (where it’s known as Bare Knuckle 3), this difficulty is Streets of Rage 3’s normal mode. So, you might well think bad of yourself for picking the easier route through the Mega Drive beat-em-up but you’re actually playing what is the standard difficulty overseas and you still get mocked for it.
Come on, be a big strong Western video gamer and play on a harder setting next time… apparently?