The Problem With Hard Mode (In Some Games)

When done right, hard mode in video games can be a great challenge that pushes the player to achieve excellence while still being fair. However, hard mode is sometimes just an exercise in frustration and a big mistake in certain games. So in this video, I'm going to break down some examples of the latter, based on my personal experiences playing hard modes and hard games in general over the years. I'll get into unintentional design flaws as well as more deliberate ones such as input reading in fighting games.

00:00 Intro
00:36 Hard Mode Exposes Design Flaws
06:27 Fake Difficulty Is Real

Games shown in order:

Unreal Tournament (PC, map is AS-Overlord on Godlike difficulty)
Cool Spot (Sega Master System)
Timesplitters 2 (Gamecube)
Final Soldier (PC Engine, Expert Mode)
Mortal Kombat II
Street Fighter 2 Champion Edition (accidentally said Championship Edition in the video)
The King Of Fighters 94
Art Of Fighting 2
Gradius (via Gradius Collection on PSP)

Sources/Further Reading:

Article about fighting game AI today: https://www.gamesradar.com/future-fig...

TV Tropes Entry on Fake Difficulty: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

Articles about SNK Boss Syndrome:

https://atrociousgameplay.miraheze.or...

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...