My name is Homura, and I am the senior director, administrator, and one of the original founders of Pokemon Crossroads. I’m going to give just a tiny bit of introduction as to what my column is all about. The Anomalous Niche is essentially a relatively short opinion column by me where I sometimes try to tie details in everyday life to Pokemon from my vantage point as a niche gamer. I started this in about August of last year, but I was unable to continue because of personal reasons. Now that I have some time, I decided to restart the column. Onward!
On recent times I had a craving to play some Dark Souls. For those who have no idea what this game is, it is an action role playing game that is punishingly difficult. It is notorious for being difficult in its mechanics and level design. Why do I play it? I think the key to understanding why I, or anybody, would play a difficult game would be to understand the mentality behind it.
Scuplture by futantshadow showing a knight on his knees, illustrating the punishing nature of the game.
Why does difficulty attract us? I think it is because of the fact that it provides a much more rewarding experience. In most games, you are tried through a level to be rewarded with say a cutscene or some other reward such as new weapons. What if, on top of this, you also have the reward of the satisfaction of beating the game itself? That is the crux of this all: I think that by creating challenges that are actually challenging, we are engaged more so, driving up our reward centres with more dopamine. That is, we find that passing through a difficult experience, and passing through the frustration, makes that new weapon all the much sweeter.
Of course, what is difficulty without preparation? Another aspect of difficulty in games is simply that it teaches us the concept of preparation. By trial and error, or by research into the bosses or challenges ahead, we learn from our past mistakes and perfect our techniques to conquer the game. By doing so we inherently use some of the greatest weapons in our arsenal even without consciously thinking about it. The advent of websites such as GameFAQs is a testament of how much we crave understanding of games that we enjoy. So much so that people would even pay money to buy strategy guides for their favourite games, all in the name of preparation and research.
How does difficulty relate to Pokemon? Pokemon games, for the most part, are known for being easy games. How on Earth would difficult games and difficult game design even factor into Pokemon? Well first off modern Pokemon games actually do have challenging modes that test the wits of their players to the extreme. Most games now have areas similar to Pokemon Towers or battle subways, where players are met with increasingly difficult bosses, with severe restrictions as to what they can use as well. Yet we find that those tend to be very popular mechanics in the game, since otherwise Nintendo would have scrapped such ideas by now. Nintendo is keenly aware of the demand, after all.
But what if there are those that want the journey to be difficult? The popularity of Nuzlocke runs stand as testament of our craving for a more rewarding experience. For those who don’t know Nuzlocke runs, it is a self-imposed restriction that you can only attempt to catch the first Pokemon from each new area. That means no other Pokemon encountered in that area can be captured after the first. The second restriction is that knocked out Pokemon must be removed from the game, either by releasing them or by boxing them in an area where they will not be retrieved for the remainder of the game.
Nuzlocke runs are so popular, many document their adventures, such as Marriland’s Platinum Nuzlocke.
Surprisingly Nuzlocke runs and subsequent descriptions of quests entice us and make us want to go through it more: the definition of an experience brought on by difficulty. We continue to subject ourselves to such punishment, even when the game doesn’t ask us to do so! For example, I subject myself to Nuzlocke runs and no free healing last year when Pokemon Black 2 came out. Many people asked me, “Isn’t this game too hard because you can’t heal?” I answered them no, because my preparations ahead of time from a previous run already gave me understanding of the game. I know when to heal, where the move deleter is, and how to find valuable Tms to make my run more smooth. The reward? I tell people I beat Pokemon Nuzlocke hardcore mode. That, is all too sweet.
