So Steam Users called Dark Souls artificial difficulty; why did anybody expect any better with La-mulana?

[Hikari ネコ]

[Sicris]

No idea where you're getting at. No one said La-Mulana had artifical difficulty except for a select few who don't fully know what the term means.

[River's]

Can anybody state the true meaning of "artificial difficulty" before starting any discussions?

[Dentorhedge]

Artificial difficulty, as far as I understand it, is difficulty that is not generated by a lack of skill or understanding. Like, say, if somebody said that the trap with olmec head's jaw was this type of difficulty- even if you had not bought the scanner that explicitly tells you that this is a trap, then you should be able to tell from the cracks in the jaw and the skeletons lying around the activation. As LA-MULANA goes on it gets harder to find hints about traps and notice all the visual cues, so it is very easy to call it artificial difficulty- but it isn't.

[GeminiSaint]

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FakeDifficulty

[Sicris]

Exactly as GeminiSaint said, the only thing that La-Mulana falls under in that catagory is items lost forever and most of the time the game warns you of it (though not all I admit), and one instance of a move that is not covered anywhere, that's about it. The instant death traps don't count because there are only a few an near all of them are obvious, they also don't set you back that far if you save often as you should.

[JROB774]

Also, even if you do lose the items forever you always have the ability to go to the secret shop and get them back.

[Sicris]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von PixelVortex:

Also, even if you do lose the items forever you always have the ability to go to the secret shop and get them back.

Not all of them unfortunately

[JROB774]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Sicris:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von PixelVortex:

Also, even if you do lose the items forever you always have the ability to go to the secret shop and get them back.

Not all of them unfortunately

The only one you can't get back is the Sacred Orb, am I right? I can't remeber off the top of my head.

[Sicris]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von PixelVortex:

The only one you can't get back is the Sacred Orb, am I right? I can't remeber off the top of my head.

2 Sacred Orbs, the Dimensional Corridor one and Shrine of the Mother one. Also bounce.exe

[River's]

You can always get the Orb in the Dimensional Corridor. Use the little blue dragon laser attack to be knocked back up on the right ground. I did so, it works.

[Sicris]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von River's:

You can always get the Orb in the Dimensional Corridor. Use the little blue dragon laser attack to be knocked back up on the right ground. I did so, it works.

Yea but I don't count it. You have to be extremely lucky and it's time consuming. Could be hours before you can get up there and even if you do you still have to be either lucky or skilled to avoid the spikes and not fall off once you get up there. For all intents and purposes it's an item lost forever for the majority of people that aren't willing to rely on a chance exploit.

[River's]

No no it is kinda easy, it takes maybe five minutes, and that is the time needed to realize that the laser shot by the little dragon is not random, it follows a regular and rotatory pattern, fortunately.

[Sicris]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von River's:

No no it is kinda easy, it takes maybe five minutes, and that is the time needed to realize that the laser shot by the little dragon is not random, it follows a regular and rotatory pattern, fortunately.

Well It's nice to see it's not random anymore. I've only done it successfully once in the original version and that one was a nightmare to do. Then I fell off and gave up.

[JROB774]

It took me a fair few tries to get the Dimensional Corridor Sacred Orb, what I did was make a save before the fight with the Dragon and then if I fell off I would just load it back up and try again, it can be considered an exploit of the game but it worked and made getting it a much less frustrating experience.

[T-wRecks]

The difficulty is largely from the puzzles instead of the combat or platforming. Calling the difficulty artificial is akin to saying the Myst series has artificial difficulty. It's a mashup of 2 genres; Metroidvania and puzzle-based adventure. If you do badly at either you'll struggle.