PERSONAL

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Fun and Frustration

7 years ago1,288 words

I played Ori and the Blind Forest and have been playing Hollow Knight recently. The former made difficulty fun, the latter's 'difficulty' made me stop playing it.

I've been wanting to write a post about psychological things like core beliefs, as I'll be going to Korea for a month alarmingly soon and I feel I need to ready my mind for that as best I can... but I've also been trying to add a little bit of 'fun' to my otherwise empty life recently in the form of games. I don't often play games these days, but it seems like most of my positive memories are of exploring game worlds... which is sad. Oh well.



Anyway, I'd been wanting to play Ori and the Blind Forest for ages just because I knew it was fairly renowned, but I didn't know much at all about it other than that it was one of those atmospheric, arty indie things, or something. I didn't know it was a Metroidvania. I've tried to make games of that genre myself in the past (particularly one called Raider, which I never finished), so learning that Ori was one piqued my interest further and led to me finally playing it.

I played through the whole game in three days, and was left wanting more. It's beautiful, visually, and movement around the organically-shaped environment is fluid and fun in itself, especially towards the end with all the skills like double-jumping and climbing and air dashing that allow you to remain airborne much of the time. After finishing the story, I explored what little bits of the map I'd missed simply for the fun of moving around and ogling the pretty scenery.



It was also quite difficult, but in a really enjoyable way I haven't felt in years. I think the last time was when I played Skyward Sword, and was up against Ghirahim in what I think was the first temple boss? I can't remember the details, or how the battle even played out (something about parrying sword strikes, I think?), but it felt surprisingly, intensely challenging without being unfair or frustrating. I felt the same while playing Ori during the first escape sequence, where I had to really use the skills I'd gained so far to jump quickly up through a tricky gauntlet as deadly water rapidly rose below me. It was intense, but in a way I really appreciated, especially since failure led directly to another attempt without even restarting the music or anything.

But then there's Hollow Knight...



Ori left me wanting more, and I found this game because its soundtrack came up in the recommended videos on YouTube after I'd finished listening to the Ori one (which I very much like). I didn't know if it was well-known or any good or anything, but it was apparently an indie Metroidvania with intriguing graphics, so I thought the experience might not be a million miles off the one I'd just enjoyed.

I can't say I've found it fun at all so far, though. It's been... okay, I suppose, but the idea of playing it feels like a chore rather than a pleasure. It adds to my stress rather than relieving it. And this is largely due to difficulty.

In Ori and the Blind Forest, you can essentially create save points at will wherever you like. There are limitations - you need expendable energy to do so - but for the most part, it's never necessary to endure long periods without saving. How much or how little you save is up to you. The only parts I found briefly unpleasant while playing the game were near the beginning, when I ran out of energy and had to replay tricky platforming sections again and again because I couldn't save after them. Acquiring more energy alleviated that.

The save points in Hollow Knight are few and far between, however, and its difficult platforming sections - and abundant enemies - are rendered much more frustrating as a result. In particular, there aren't generally save points before bosses... and the bosses require pattern-learning and quick reactions to defeat, which take a bit of learning. I just lost against a boss after facing it for the first time and lacking the familiarity with its patterns to defeat it (the bosses also take dozens of hits to defeat, which irritates me), but I respawned at a save point so far away that to reattempt this boss battle, I would have needed to trek for several minutes through areas packed full of obnoxious enemies that were hard enough to defeat the first time... So I just thought "I'm not doing that" and quit.

Additionally, you collect currency throughout the game, but if you die, all your money is transferred to some kind of shadow thing that spawns where you died, meaning you have to go back and defeat that shadow (which can hurt you like any other enemy) in order to retrieve them. But if you die before doing that, then your shadow respawn at the new point of death, and your money is gone for good. I just lost around 1000 currency - which took me ages to accumulate - because my shadow respawned in a boss chamber, and I died trying to defeat it because I'd been whittled down by enemies on my way back to that boss chamber, and both it and the unfamiliar boss were vying for my attention at once.

Is this fun for anyone, I wonder? I mean, is it just me that gets frustrated by this? Does anyone enjoy those treks back to the boss, the constant threat of severe penalties for failure? I know there are games like Dark Souls (which I've never played) which are apparently appealing to people because they're difficult, and I wonder whether Hollow Knight is aimed at them and not at people like me and that's why I'm not enjoying it.

But Ori was really difficult too; it's just that it didn't rely on harsh penalties and tedious backtracking in order to enforce that difficulty. Challenges are something I can enjoy... if I can repeat them immediately after failing. But if I fail a challenge, then have to trudge through something I could already do and get nothing out of just in order to try that challenge again, then that's not my idea of fun at all. That's just busywork. It's like doing an online exam, which you can try as many times as you like... but between tries you have to log out of your computer, shut it down, reload it again, find the website again, and then begin the exam again. Frustrating, and it adds nothing.

Hollow Knight also have fairly clunky-feeling movement, in my opinion, and the environments are much more blocky and inorganic than those of Ori. That makes the backtracking feel like even more of a chore...

I never really played any Metroid games, but I seem to remember Castlevania ones having sparsely-distributed save points too, though there was always one before a boss. Not having one before a boss just seems unnecessarily cruel to me.

Anyway. I'm not sure whether to continue with Hollow Knight or just try something else... I want to enjoy it, but it's making that quite difficult for me. It's such a shame to not finish a game I've started, but if it's just an ordeal to slog through, perhaps I'd only be wasting my time on it anyway. Maybe I'll just wait until the Ori and the Will of the Wisps comes out.