Gaming has spawned an interesting culture. An idiom of sorts that gets tossed around goes something like “if you are finding enemies in your path, you are going the right way”, essentially meaning that life gets challenging when you’re doing the right thing.
I’m not here to test the validity of this koanic wisdom, it doesn’t seem useful to think too much about the language behind it. Rather, it gets me thinking about solving problems.
One of the things I love most in video games is thinking carefully about my actions and working towards a goal. This isn’t necessary for a game to be enjoyable, but put an interesting fight or puzzle to solve between me and whichever McGuffin I’m after and I am already engaged.
Sometimes, a fight or puzzle will have you beat. You’ll shy away and avoid that area until you absolutely have to. I once wrote about the Mirror Knight in Dark Souls II absolutely destroying me on my second playthrough, after I made short work of him the first time around. I had to beat him to advance in the game, and for some reason I couldn’t best him with the new build after dozens of attempts. I eventually developed the right skills to take him down, through a combination of preparation patience..
That fight had me pulling out all the stops – I was even using consumables, which I don’t usually do in ‘Souls. Sometimes you have to pull out all the stops, and think outside the box to get your result.
- Are you a cautious or aggressive gamer? Do you explore a game’s mechanics slowly and patiently, or do you run in gun’s blazing to see what happens?
- What is the most difficult boss you have ever fought? I’m gonna go with soloing Ornstein and Smough – I don’t even want to know how many times I tried fighting them! Ez now, mind you.
- Do you have a mirror knight? A boss you could beat easily, but struggled with on another playthrough?
- As always, feel free to Talk Amongst Yourselves!
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