Take it Easy

It's probably not a popular opinion to have given the enduring popularity of the Dark Souls series, but you know what? I appreciate the current trend of putting "casual" modes in video games. It's not only handy for those of us whose reflexes have dulled with age, but it makes games that were impenetrable even back in the old days more approachable, and fun. 

Take for instance Mega Man X Legacy Collection. There's a Rookie mode which not only lowers each game's difficulty, but removes some of the frustration of starting at a disadvantage. Unlike games in the classic Mega Man series, where the title character begins and ends his adventure with the same amount of health, X starts off with a minuscule life bar and a basic move set, without the abilities he needs to ultimately beat Sigma. 

You've got to improve X by collecting items and discovering capsules hidden in every stage. This adds depth to the gameplay but has the unfortunate side effect of making the game tough for newcomers, rather than easing them into the action and slowly turning up the challenge as they improve. 

Why Capcom thought dropping a brick wall in front of first-timers was a good idea (or why Mega Man fans are okay with this reverse difficulty slope) is a mystery, but in the Rookie mode, it's no longer a problem. You'll still have to earn those heart tanks and armor pieces, but with the damage turned down to a reasonable level, less battle hardened players have an honest shot at finding them, and at beating the bosses at the end of each stage. I didn't enjoy Mega Man X when it first debuted on the Super NES, but thanks to the Rookie mode, I'm enjoying it now.

The absence of a casual mode is deeply felt in another classic collection for the Switch, Double Dragon and Kunio-Kun: Retro Brawler Bundle. The Double Dragon games for the NES were tough, to the point where the first game wouldn't let you continue at all and the second forced players to enter increasingly complicated codes to resume their progress. (The third game let you continue if you could reach the fourth stage, but good luck getting that far.)

The collection does let you make a suspend save at any point, but it's tedious to frequently have to reload it, and it doesn't address the flaws in the games that a casual mode would have. The original Double Dragon is full of questionable design decisions that are tolerable at the start but quickly snowball into obnoxious by the third mission. The holes that the Abobos leave behind after they burst through a wall- holes that led to nothing in the first level of the arcade game- are now portals to the second half of the stage. Walk past them and you'll have to finish the stage again, with a lot less time to spare.

If you do go through that hole, the game decides that this whole "beating up guys" thing is boring and that it wants to be a platformer instead, with your hero dodging stalactites and awkwardly leaping onto metal lifts. Is brawny Billy Lee fast enough to avoid that rain of spikes? Not really. Does pressing A and B together feel like a natural way to jump in a game that suddenly demands precision jumping? Not really. If you fall from that lift and tumble into a fiery pit, will you have enough lives to finish the game? You guessed it... not really.

Some of the games in the Double Dragon and Kunio-Kun collection have what's called "quality up" versions which fix flaws in the originals, but it's pretty clear that Arc System Works didn't address the flaws that needed fixing the most. Infinite continues in the Double Dragon games would have been a good start. More forgiving platform segments in games that don't really need platform segments would have been even better. 

We were willing to put up with these flaws in our teens, when we didn't know any better, but that was over thirty years ago. We do know better now, and the game companies should too. Casual modes are designed to not only make games easier for players who may no longer be as skilled or as patient as they were when they were fourteen, but to smooth over rough patches that may have been honest mistakes by the programmers, or intentionally left there to nudge players renting the game into a purchase. 

Capcom realized this when they put casual modes in their Mega Man collections. Namco understood this too when they finally brought Mr. Driller Drill Land to the United States, offering a mode that accommodates both less skilled players, and content tourists who want to experience the subterranean fun of Mr. Driller without the frustration. Other developers, and Arc System Works in particular, need to follow in their lead. "Git gud" may be an acceptable response to players frustrated with Dark Souls, but it's not appropriate for thirty year old games that may not have been that "gud" in the first place.