Originally posted by: cirellio
[1] As far as difficulty settings go, they definitely have their place and I love them in certain games. For instance, I'd absolutely expect it in just about any puzzle game. They also work in most beat-em-ups and FPS's.
But I wouldn't like it very much in a Metroidvania or jRPG.
[2] For that matter, the ever-present and ever-adjustable difficulty slider in wRPGs (such as Elder Scrolls: Oblivion) drives me up the wall. If somebody tells me they defeated a certain boss or got past certain content, first thing I wonder is, "Yeah, but what difficulty setting were you on?"
[3] When a game is a well-laid out adventure, I believe there's an opportunity to make a very deliberate learning curve, and it's an opportunity to -subtly- teach the player to learn new tricks in order to overcome new challenges.
For these kinds of games, if some of your target audience still requests an easy mode, maybe the feature can be hidden behind a code input or come with a penalty of some kind (no final stage, crappier ending, etc.).
[1] Ok, clear, thanks.
[2] True. Also, any game with quick save in any point of the game, loses any challenge value on my books, so I honestly did not play any of those. In games like FF 1 to 6 there are several more or less friendly save points, even half way in a dungeon, but still, you have to accomplish again at least some search, retake some steps, redo many challenging things, retake some objects and treasure, if you fail your task the first time, before getting to the next save point. And some are quite far apart in very challenging areas, and you need to do something worthy remember challenge wise (at least the first time you did it), before reaching the next save point.
For instance, in FF VI (FF III us), SPOILER ALERT! [the game is over 20 years old, I think it is ok] you save before Atma on floating continent (assuming that you did save, by the way!), then you are surprised by Atma, rather tough battle (depending how much you avoided to over level), and then a cut scene, and then... an unexpected few minutes of running against the clock, no time to heal, facing several battles against unknown opponents with weird immunities, before another final boss, and if the timer runs over, retake everything from before Atma. You will likely not make it the first time, and the second time, you have to restart from before Atma again (quite enraged about having already defeated that boss, by the way).
So, well, clear the floating continent chapter, it is something that gives you quite a big sense of accomplishment when you finally can do it, I mean the first time that you can accomplish the task (especially if you discovered a working strategy by yourself). Imagine the same scenario with unlimited quick save, challenge wise, saving before any battle while running away, where would be the challenge, it would just be meh... at least, that's my opinion, other would argue that save state in emulators make these games more enjoyable. To each its own.
[3] This! I definitely agree. Do not babysit me! Force me to *discover* the game mechanics in order to progress, but don't explicitly tell me to do * this * because to do * this * in this case is the best call; and mostly, make it so that I can still * discover * a suboptimal strategy (you programmer did not even think about maybe), avoiding doing * this *, but cunningly win anyways.
I really agree with what you wrote in this chapter!
Edit: misspelling, corrected a sentence.