When we talk about game difficulty (and if you’ve ever paid attention to online conversations about video games you know this is basically all the time), few people are bringingAstro Botup in the same breath asElden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree.
Astro Bot’s Challenge Levels Are The Dark Souls Of 3D Platforming
That makes sense, since you’re able to easily get through most, if not all, of Astro Bot’s required levels without breaking a sweat. The critical path is designed to be scenic, but not especially difficult. For the most part, it’s a game that a young kid can play and beat without too much trouble.
But if you go off that well-worn path, the difficulty quickly rockets up like Astro Bot wearing a chicken on his back. YouTuber Writing on Games recentlytweetedthat Astro Bot’s challenge levels were significantly more difficult than Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree. The tweet was in response to a video of a player completing a kaizo Astro level, complete with spinning electricity trip wires and pits of lava.
I fully believe Writing on Games is telling the truth. I also fully believe that I could finish everything Astro Bot has to offer without too much trouble, though I suspect I’d also get stuck for an hour or two on even the easiest bosses in Shadow of the Erdtree, which is why I haven’t gone back toElden Ringsince launch. I’ve beat my fair share of FromSoftware bosses over the years, but combat is always going to be significantly harder for me than a platforming challenge.
Challenge Is Completely Subjective
That also holds true in platformers. I never finishedHollow Knight, despite loving Metroidvanias, because I got impatient with the tough-as-nails boss battles. Memorizing attack patterns and then blocking, dodging, and hitting back at the right times is something I’ve never been good at. But if I need to memorize when to jump, when to double jump, how far to air dash, and where to hover, I can pick it up without much trouble.
I’m wondering why that is. I mean, on one hand, sometimes you’re just good at stuff. It’s nature, not nurture. On the other hand, I’ve been playing platformers for as long as I can remember. I didn’t make it far in games like Ristar and Super Mario Land and The Lion King as a kid because they didn’t offer save states and I was impatient, but I did start playing them almost as soon as I could walk, and so maneuvering around a run-and-jump world will always feel almost innate to me.
That means I have a completely different confidence when approaching this genre than when I make a swing at other kinds of challenges. When I run into a tough boss battle in Dark Souls, I suspect that I might eventually be able to beat it, but I also know that it will take me hours and hours of frustration. Yet in the face of even the most precise platforming challenge, I know that I can get it and that it probably won’t take too long.
That self-belief seems like the biggest difference. There’s that Henry Ford quote that, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” That’s a little simple in the face of the real world and all the material conditions that can prevent you from making your dreams a reality. But when thinking about video games, that pithy saying is basically the whole story. Believing I can conquer any challenge that comes my way is 9/10 of the battle. Maybe I need to remember that next time I’m up against Malenia.
