10 Ways Dark Souls Made All Video Games WORSE
4. “Punishing” And “Cheap” Are Now Mutually Exclusive
I was playing one of those browser platformers where it appears simple enough, but then an invisible spike appears out of nowhere and you die instantly.
After you’ve memorised where the spike is, you can jump over the place where it materialises, but then a pitfall opens up and you fall to your death anyway.
”This game’s cheap”, cackles one of the comments.
“It’s not cheap, it’s just punishing”, replies angry man.
”Git Gud”, smirks the original poster.
”Cheap”, in fighting games, is when a technique or ability is disproportionately effective compared to the effort it takes to pull it off. In single-player games, it normally refers to when an AI enemy does an unreasonably powerful attack with comparatively few startup frames (or warning of any description).
”Punishing” is when a player error results in disproportionate punishment (like when my flatmates stole my milk, so I defecated in their stew pot). Basically, huge, telegraphed means huge damage, but you wouldn’t expect big punishment from Beige Regular Attack.
Dark Souls players abhor hearing something is “cheap” in their game, instead preferring the term “punishing”, like it’s somehow more honourable. Yet, by the actual definitions of the two terms, Dark Souls can actually be... both punishing and cheap.
The two terms are not mutually exclusive - some games are both! There’s no prize for being defensive about arbitrary terminology - unlike me, who takes the medal for defending the distinctions between the terms “punishing” and “cheap”.