"Fun" Hard and "Stupid" Hard

[Durxom]

Most gamers like a challenge, either it be through just trying to go through the story, or doing a no-damage run or beating the hardest difficulty. But the kind of difficulty that is implemented can be altogether different depending on the developer and design choices, so I have my own way of branding said difficulty as either "Fun" Hard or "Stupid" Hard.

"Fun" Hard is when the specific area or boss, while hard via time limit, health or etc. is fun to play through and do over again. The boss might hit hard, but its fun to dodge out of the way, rush in and do a good combo on him, or the music and atmosphere or design is breathtaking enough to make to not care as much.

"Stupid" Hard on the other hand, is just well..stupid. The area while looking appealing is riddled with imbalance, loopholes, or just straight "how the hell do you expect me to do that" moments. Bosses will pull of near impossible one hits that take split second co-ordination and even if you do dodge it, you have another wave of enemies and a boulder heading right for you.

So, now with that explained, why not name off some of your "Fun" Hard and "Stupid" Hard moment you have come across in the games you have played.

Mine being..
Fun Hard: Fighting Dante at any difficulty in DMC4..he has a smart AI, he can block most of your moves, but when you finally to get him, it is ohh so satisfying..dodging his attacks feel great, and the bg music pumps you up.

Stupid Hard: Fighting Seth in near almost every difficulty in SF4...you'll have fun beating through the normal fighters, and maybe a bit of a challenge with some of the later fighters, but the game takes a major difficulty jump, even on Easiest, when you go up to fight Seth..his attacks are annoying as hell, his priority is ridiculous, and he is altogether bland...you might find a pattern to it once you play it enough, but it is still so irritating

 

[Radeonx]

Fun Hard: I Wanna Be The Guy, I Wanna Be The Tribute, etc.
I only found it to be a little challenging, but it is still a fantastic game to challenge yourself.
Also, the Ninja Gaiden games. The necessity to run around, make crazy combos, and make sure you block all the time make it exciting, fun, and somewhat challenging.

 

[Wolfram23]

Fun Hard: Demon's Souls

Stupid Hard: Demon's Souls (Old King Doran or False King Allant in particular)

 

[Nwabudike Morgan]

I call the enjoyable hard "Mario hard" and the cheap bullshitty hard "Castlevania hard". When a game is Mario hard it makes you want to keep going, because it's a fair challenge, because you know you can do it, you just gotta keep out it. When a game is Castlevania hard, you just want to say "fuck this bullshit" and play something else.

 

[BlumiereBleck]

Fun Hard: Fighting Crocodile with Luffy on One Piece recreating the end of the Alabasta arc on One Piece Grand Adventure.

Stupid Hard: Risk on the xbox live, seriously on hard everyone other then you rolls nothing but 6's

 

[Drakmeire]

bayonetta=fun hard
Devil may Cry 3= MOTHERF*@%ING A#%#&@%^ C*#@^& L*@(*#ING STUPID HARD!!!!

 

[Yagharek]

Fun hard: Games that reward you for actually getting better. The better you get, the easier it gets. Games like most of Ninja gaiden. Hard. But the better you get, the easier it is. To beat it, you have to have around a certain level of skill, varying a little depending on luck. Seems fairly intuitive.

Stupid hard: Games that stop rewarding you past a point however good you get. COD: World at War on veteran, for example. However good you get, there are always deaths that you cannot avoid. Grenades all around you, five people running straight for you, with your AI team ignoring them, and them ignoring your AI team. Here, you need a certain level of luck, varying a little depending on skill.

 

[oreopizza47]

any one of the Devil May Cry games or their ilk, and the ocassional tougher levels in shooters that can't be solved with "more gun." Those are fun hard.

Ninja Gaiden (for backstabbing impossibility and impossible requirements), IWBTG (same reasons), and any RPG with a weapon-breaking mechanic (Seriously, who thought that was a good idea?); Stupid Hard... or perhaps just stupid.

 

[Luke5515]

Fun Hard: Left 4 dead on expert
Stupid Hard: Call of Duty WAW. So much gernade spam.

 

[Nwabudike Morgan]

I just realized I forgot to post examples:

Fun hard: the later license tests in Gran Turismo
Stupid hard: playing as Miriam on transcend difficulty in Alpha Centauri

 

[AfroTree]

Fun Hard: Demons souls, all of it.....mostly

Stupid Hard: Old King Doran,im sorry but
No, Just No

 

[Krantos]

Fun hard: Final Boss in KOTOR. It can be done any way you want and with any character if you do it right.

Stupid Hard: Final Boss in KOTOR 2. Overly powerful attacks that can kill in one hit on criticals. Always hits. Resists all force powers. Too much life to take down quickly. I've played this with about 5 different characters and they all did the same thing to win: Cast a power that slows her down when she resists. Run up and hit (or use force power with chip damage; ie does half damage when resisted). Run away before she can hit back. Repeat. Lame.

 

[dthvirus]

Fun Hard: The tank in Battlefield Bad Company 2.
Stupid Hard: On a 2.0 GhZ laptop.

 

[MellowFellow]

Fun Hard: Any NCAA football game on heisman, because the computers are actually competent enough to stop on pretty much any deep routes made by your wide receivers unlike the other difficulties where I can just toss the ball up into the air and score a touchdown every time.

Stupid Hard: Alpha Protocol, specifically the Brayko boss fight. The reason I say this is because Brayko does some cocaine or some kind of drug you sniff and becomes almost invincible, while coming at you with a knife. The problem is that guns have no effect on people at close range, and trying to fight hand to hand is impossible because in Alpha Protocol the computers know how to block melee attacks, but you, the player, cannot block attacks. It was probably one of the most frustrating boss fights I have played, I ended up running around until Brayko's drug induced rage went away and he pulled his guns back out, just so that I could damage him without dying.

 

[Grey_Focks]

Fun Hard- X-Com (UFO defense, TFTD and Apocalypse) where all VERY unfair to the player at the start of the game, but it was also somehow much more fun knowing how outmatched you were.

Halo (any) on Legendary co-op is just fun. Watching as you and your friends die horrific deaths at the hands of aliens is just appealing to me.

Stupid hard- Demon's Souls. It just felt like the game didn't want the player to win, and it was going to do everything in it's power to kill your enjoyment of games as a whole in the process.

 

[TriggerUnhappy]

Fun hard: Any game that gets difficult or challenging and rewards you for being good or better then it should without pulling bullshit.

Stupid hard: Fake difficulty, period. Games that defy their own rules and punish you for being good.

Basically this. Ninja Gaiden 1 + 2 are the perfect examples for both though, with the first being fun hard, where someone had a playthrough of no damage on the hardest difficulty. The second game however, is stupid hard, with many cheap unblockable attacks, meaning you'll have to depend on luck and spamming cheap attacks.

 

[Scobie]

DELETED

 

[Carnagath]

Fun hard: Demon's Souls. It's unforgiving, but never overwhelming, there are no spots where you think "Ok, this is impossible", at least not until NG+. You just need to be careful, alert and not fuck around. Ok, Allant solo is impossible on NG+ but easy if you coop him. In general, progress feels really rewarding and you can't wait till you sink your teeth into the next amazingly designed deathzone.

Stupid hard: Some of the bonus challenges in Super Mario Galaxy 2. They bring back all those tormenting memories of childhood rage that you had managed to forget up until then, with 5-minute long timed runs tuned to the second, controller-breakingly hard precision platforming, sadistic purple coin and shadow clone minisections, and gimmicky motion-controlled segments like speed-Yoshi or Buzzard-flying or the Glass Ball with controls that you hadn't realized were THAT shitty until the designers decided to tune them to the centimeter/millisecond for that bonus star. All of my hate.