Why is this game considered so hardcore?

[Fracture94]

I've played many platformers, and this isn't remotely close to be among the hardest ones. I just did a 0 death run Ending A without much effort, less that 10 hours full achievements and no death run for both Ending A and C+ (and B of course but that only took me like 8 mins lol). Not trying to sound cool, arrogant or anything like that... im genuinely curious about how is this game considered by many as the pinnacle of hardcore games, with games such as Wings of Vi out there lol.

Oh and just to clarify, hardcore or not, i consider this game a masterpiece of the genre, its insanely good, and it takes many things i hate in platformers (lack of air control, losing power ups when getting hit, no checkpoints, etc...) and it manages to make them enjoyable.

Great experience no doubt about it, but im still interested about what i just said. What do most people see in this title's difficulty to have such a fame?

[Chocos Ramabotti]

I think this game has a rather methodical approach to difficulty which is nothing everyone is good in, also it punishes you harder than most other games by setting you back quite a distance. For the valkyrie run you have an limited amount of tries, all these are uncommon in todays era of gaming and even if games tend to feature hard plattforming they come around 99% of the time with an option to circumvent difficulty, be it an invincibility toggle or an "assist-mode" where you can manipulate the rules of the game to your liking.

Volgarr doesn't do this it forces you to 'git gud' and isn't afraid of demanding some sort of consistency of skill, by not setting you 15 seconds before the passage you died on and limiting your tries like in the good ol' arcade days.

But yeah I agree compared to older games, Volgarr isn't THAT hard but since it was created in an era where hard games aren't the norm anymore and game journalists froming agendas trying actively to push on easy/assist modes to hard games under the the term of "accessibility" Volgarr stands out exceptionally for doing its thing, not faltering to almost expected standards.

tl:dr
the bar is just very low nowadays

[TSense]

Back in the day, one of the first videos on youtube about this game was about "wow secret level".

It was a guy who beat the first boss and made it to level 2.
I think the idea of not using checkpoints/quicksaves every 3 steps is just to much today.

tl:dr
the bar is just very low nowadays

[Vince]

im 43 and grew up with spectrum and atari games this game is very of that era. like other posters have said games are just way to easy in comparison nowadays. i find it difficult but i was never good at these sort of games back in the day anyway

[Thor]

Glad you guys dug it. :)

[Bavanity]

To me this is a pattern platformer... you make a mistake that you never make a second time, learn as you go along.. But you also learn how various enemies work and can make on the fly informed decisions as well. 10 hrs sounds about right.
I have it on my switch but I want to play it on my laptop and just realised the steam one is very old.. does it work ok with modern PC's and OS?

BTW, there are two things I don't like about it. You can't poke your sword up, aka Rastan (and in so many other ways it's a Rastan clone), and jumping actually is a little stiff if you're up against something, But other than that it's very addictive.

[anatkhht]

so why is this game considered so hardcore?
it is not and it has never been treated like the ultrahardcore experience, not even when it was new. however its a hard and challenging game. like you said hardcore or not it's an excellent game.

it is also a good introduction for hardcore games.

if your looking for a game considered so hardcore and that actually is. play ghost and goblins resurrection on legend difficulty. you won't be disappointed.

[Lunatix]

The true difficulty of the game comes when you are attempting to speedrun it and measure yourself with other runners to be honest, this is one of the only game here where we have the chance to to not have the leaderboard polluted by cheaters. Otherwise you can go through it slowly and you will beat it eventually because you just have to learn the patterns it is not unfair in the way of a ghosts n goblins.

[アウトコールド]

I think it's "hardcore". Each level has no checkpoints. It's challenging enough. I just started playing it today (although I think I played it some on Xbox many years ago). Maybe once I play it enough I will find it easy too.

[Allibernus]

This game is hard but fair. Most of considered hard games are not fair or have a gameplay that is so ♥♥♥♥♥♥ that kills you all the time. You won't beat this game at first try but it's doable for everyone. All you have to do is memorize the stages. Plus the gameplay is smooth.

[Mu'Ammar of Carthus]

How often did you zoom out, though?
Game's fairly easy with that crutch to begin with, it got even easier when they made it toggleable.