Difficulty in games isn’t a slider of HP and damage anymore.

In general, we’ve seen more and more games adopt “Story” difficulties, allow for QTE’s to be automatically completed (Or completed with simplified inputs), change different aspects of the game individually (Such as “Puzzle” vs “Combat” difficulty) and even more genre-specific changes such as unlimited (or very cheap) respecs.

Now, I’m someone who doesn’t think players have the right to demand Dark Souls gets an easy mode, but that doesn’t mean I’m against every game that does. Those games aren’t Dark Souls. In the same way that Dark Souls isn’t those games.

But, more and more I am finding ways to make “easier” games more engaging and interesting, through nothing more than a small shift in mindset and progression. Of course, the game has to be compatible with my new playstyle, but in at least a few games I have played recently this hasn’t been a problem.

So, what did I change?

The Problem with Power

When I’m faced with a progression system in a game, be it a skill tree or crafting menu or what-have-you, I’m generally inclined to want to uncover it. That’s inherently the point of a progression system; you want to, in a word, progress.

Thing is, not all games are built the same, and when it comes to having a balanced and consistently challenging experience, some progression systems actively undermine that goal.

The premiere example that comes to mind is Lost Judgement, the absolute peak of RGG (or at least, peak-adjacent). If you want to max out your stats and unlock everything in a playthrough it’s perfectly do-able, but the problem (at least, for players like me) is that this will trivialise the last segment of the game.

The most climactic fight in the game became a struggle to not bulldoze, to the point I kinda just danced around a bit to listen to the music and pull off some cinematic-ass moves rather than needing to, in any way, try.

When I wanted to finish the fight it was only a few heat moves (Sorry, “EX Moves”) away.

Your damage and health are so ridiculous that all the other, much more interesting and juicy mechanics (like triggering stance-specific buffs and stacking them across styles), are rendered irrelevant at best and unusable at worst. It’s like getting a new combo in Devil May Cry and waiting for an enemy who survives long enough to actually pull it off.

Enter – Like a Dragon: A Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii.

A Rough Start

When it came to Pirate Yakuza (as it shall henceforth be called, because honestly that title is way too long even to abbreviate to LAD: APYIH…) I didn’t feel I could start on the hardest difficulty available for Playthrough 1, because it affected naval combat as well as ground combat. You couldn’t set them differently.

I knew the ground combat would be RGG goodness and I’d have no worries, but ship combat? I didn’t fancy risking being stuck in the ocean by a sloop on the off-chance the ship combat was trash and unbalanced (which isn’t an unfair thing to expect from a studio juggling so many minigames and mechanics).

So I started on Normal.

As expected, within the first few hours I’d taken on a “4-fist” level fight and won, despite missing over half the mechanics and having almost no stat upgrades, so I was prepared for another Lost Judgement situation…

Until…

Patience is a Virtue (So is reading…)

I read the description for the Health and Attack upgrades in the skill menu.

I was flicking through looking for what new moves I could get (WHERE IS RE-GUARD RGG???) and just went past the stat upgrades on the way.

The description was thus:

“These Skills make life easier”

And that’s all it took. Suddenly, the progression system wasn’t something to be conquered and maxed-out, like a mission, but was instead framed as an almost optional extra.

I had never thought of skills like that before.

I mean, who looks at a health upgrade that costs 1/100th of their exp and thinks “Nah, won’t get that”. Before, I’d have snatched all the upgrades up because I’d expect them to be needed, expect them to make sure I’m ready for whatever boss was next. If no other reason, I’d have got them because they’re so negligibly cheap!

But, with that line of description, “these skills make life easier”, I held back. Sure, I’d selected “Normal” difficulty, but if I didn’t level my base Attack and Health, what would happen then? Could I have a more traditional Yakuza difficulty?

As it turned out, what happens is you complete the game without ever going and levelling it further. I unlocked every skill in the game, except for the base Attack and Health upgrades.

It sounds nonsensical, it sounds silly, but the experience of having all the moves and mechanics and actually having the time to use them in fights was nothing short of perfection.

I was constantly actually using things like perfect dodges and blocks, aerial attacks, even the “madness” meter attacks which are the sorts of OP moves I tend to avoid. But, since my base stats weren’t through the roof, those “OP” moves just felt actually needed, impactful, important, worth using…

It was a challenge, at times, to have so much money and EXP available that I was just refusing to spend, but slowly I got used to notion that the enjoyment I’m getting out of the combat is worth more than my annoyance at not unlocking every upgrade.

Player Choice is Everywhere

I’m not trying to brag about how I finished the game. If you play Pirate Yakuza and the first thing you do it max your health and attack, then enjoy. The point is that in all the discussions over games in the years the Souls crowd has been telling everyone that Dark Souls does have difficulty options, they’re called “Levelling Up” and “Upgrading Your Gear”.

Thing is, I’d never taken that logic the other way.

Suddenly, I realised if a game is too easy I can just stop making myself more powerful. Just the same as Dark Souls being hard is meant to encourage the opposite.

Obviously, in an ideal world the difficulty settings and game design would mean I don’t have to enforce restrictions on what I level to have an enjoyable experience, but for now, this will help me enjoy so many more games much more than I would have otherwise.

My new approach to base upgrades such as health, stamina, etc is that I’ll keep them in my back pocket to use if I encounter something I can’t beat. That guarantees I’m never disappointed by a boss being weak, and if I really do get stuck I can play my Trap Card and redeem all those levels / equip all that new gear and go to town.