Most frustrating game I've ever played

[Kitsune]

[Edit]

I didn't buy the game, only played the demo which has two levels. It turns out stealth games aren't my forte so, while the concept is interesting, in practice it gave me more frustration that it was worth. I'm glad other enjoy it and find it easier than I did.
I'm unsubscribing from the conversation since I don't think there's anything to be gained by further discussion.

[Original message]
In my 30+ years of gaming I can't recall a more difficult or frustrating game I've ever encountered. I can't even get past the Osaka Castle mission on Easy. I've watched videos but when I attempt the same moves I'm always spotted. At the part where I'm supposed to open the door for the second character it is impossible. The video showed the player ignoring the objective and the second character eventually "teleports" to you when you get farther in the mission. I couldn't even get that to work.
Is this game supposed to be insanely difficult?

[Drusus]

I completely disagree with your assessment here.

As a gamer of equal years as yourself, I found the controls overall intuitive and effective, especially if you read the instructions seeded through the level.

Some important tips that may greatly improve your experience if you had missed them:

1. 'H' for highlight, to indicate all the interactable bits. This is especially handy for identifying items in the environment to interact with at a distance, like say, with a sniper...

2. Shadow Mode to bank actions is a MUST DO. I did find this a bit tricky to grasp at first until I realized if i just followed the actual directions it'd be a cinch. You hold shift down to 'bank' the action you want for that character, jump to another character and hold shift to repeat the banking. The part I found easy to miss was the 'hit Enter' to have them act simultaneously. Once you get this down, a bit of planning from hiding goes a very long way.

3. Hide bodies, stay hidden. An important tool for this is using the Hold Right Mouse on a spot to note vision cones. Again, if you miss the tool tip this can be a harder to grasp.

4. Quicksave often. I died a bunch but the VERY helpful quicksave clock is a major asset to reminding us to save as we experiment with strategies. Greatly helps when we do the 'oh, did not see that guard there (ack gurgle gasp thud)'

I would suggest you have missed key control and intelligence providing elements if you are finding this so difficult.

If that's not the case, I flatly disagree with your assessment as I found the difficulty on Normal spot on and both interesting as well as challenging without being arbitrarily punishing. Everytime I had to reload I was well aware I'd made a clear whoops.

After having just played the Demo, I was so impressed with the experience I just bought the game for full price, right after the winter sale. I cannot remember the last time I did that in recent years.

I wish you good luck in finding a better result in your game experience. I hope the suggestions help.

[110]

if u've played for 30 yrs i cant understand how u can make this statement, maybe there is some core feature u are missing? and in a couple days time we'll get one of those posts where u have gone through a number of missions and hopefully u can look back on this and realise how weird this sounds...

are u crouching? are u trying to watch a video of a guy doing a specific run? like avoiding bushes or not killing someone? i really cant understand how u can find the game THAT hard on easy of all things..

[falloutdude83]

I found it extremely frustrating on my first playthrough, but I've played it on hardcore difficulty and I didn't realize until mission 10 or so, that you can highlight interactive objects (well I've seen you could press the H key but it wouldn't highlight for me until I adjusted the intensity in the options).

When I now attempt it on normal it feels way easier because you don't get killed instantly when guards spot you, it is so much more forgiving.

On easy this should be a breeze if you understand the game mechanics, just do what Drusus said. I would also suggest to not only quick save often, but also to do normal saves every once in a while, e.g. after clearing some area before you proceed to the next area. I found myself often enough caught because I quick saved and got spotted immediately after, 3 quick saves are ok but depending on how short the intervals of your quick saves are, these can be a disadvantage and it's alway good to have a back up save where you can go back to if you really ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up.

[sethmage]

Take your time and observe the guards patrol pattern, activate the cone of line of sight and wait for the opportunity to take them down. I can tell you that the game doesn't get any easier as it progresses and as you saw from reviewers it got outstanding ratings. From my experience this game is contender for GotY

[Roucous]

just finish the game on Hard and think it s too easy!!!
You are kidding?

[Bertie]

Are you able to post a video of what you're doing? It's not insanely difficult so it's possible you're doing / misunderstanding something fundamental, and seeing it being done might help us point you in the right direction.

[CrumbleCat]

Then you'll be happy to know that similar games like Commandos, Desperados and Robin Hood are even more difficult. :P Did you miss playing all those?

Are you usually bad at stealth games? Or games where you need to be ridiculously attentive to vision cones.

[Uncle Mikoolo]

30 years of gaming and I take it that you never played Commandos.

[puppet74]

Im 35 played all the commandos games back when they came out. This game is great but its not harder than some of those commandos games tbh. So that would mean you probably never played commandos, and there a tone of other games that are way more anoying and harder than this. sure there is alot of trial and error in this type of game, but thats just how it is.

Kinda makes me wonder what types of games you played for those 30 years lol.

[Kitsune]

Thanks to those who offered advice. I was basically stuck on the first level where you have to open the gate to let the second player in. There are two guys patrolling clockwise and another guy watching the gate. I tried everything (killing the patrol, avoiding it and trying to kill the watcher and hide the body) but nothing worked. I eventually had to cheat my way past it. Not a proud moment but frustration level was maxed out.
Surprisingly I found the second level quite easy.
No, I've never played Commandos. I got a free copy of Thief with a graphics card many years ago and played a little of that but generally I haven't play many stealthy games. I guess I'm better that blowing stuff up.
I wish the developers much success with this game. It sure seems like it could be fun but for me, my experience will end with level two of the demo.

[Chonkington]

The game is just trial and error icarnate, just keep trying 'til you get it. It can be really rewarding when after some carful setup you pull something off just nearly getting spotted. Just keep on trying.

[110]

i really dont get it.. maybe he played 30 years of FPS, which required little to no thought.. :/ we arent geniuses here, but this game is surely not that hard on EZ... :/ i bet we could finish it just by setting the alarms off and killing everything on EZ

[Pippin123]

Originally posted by Kitsune:

Thanks to those who offered advice. I was basically stuck on the first level where you have to open the gate to let the second player in. There are two guys patrolling clockwise and another guy watching the gate. I tried everything (killing the patrol, avoiding it and trying to kill the watcher and hide the body) but nothing worked. I eventually had to cheat my way past it. Not a proud moment but frustration level was maxed out.
Surprisingly I found the second level quite easy.
No, I've never played Commandos. I got a free copy of Thief with a graphics card many years ago and played a little of that but generally I haven't play many stealthy games. I guess I'm better that blowing stuff up.
I wish the developers much success with this game. It sure seems like it could be fun but for me, my experience will end with level two of the demo.

Did you miss the guard watching from the balcony ? Or that there is two entry vines for the ninja ? Because this one is really easy if you just murder everyone.
From memory :
Enter from right side, hide in bush, kill guard when he stands next to you and hide body.
Avoid patrol and use distraction to reach guard on balcony, kill him when patrol is away.
Jump down and crouch up to the guard sitting in front of the door, kill him and hide body.
Mugen can enter and kill both patrolmen at the same time when they come back...

[Vault Traveler]

Git gut i guess.

[1]

Dude you just suck at the game hardcore..... Go watch a youtube vid of the demo or somethin.. its honestly really easy.. time to get some lazer surgery for those eyes maybe