Isn't difficulty entirely relative though? I know my sister's friends spent an entire weekend--roughly 20 hours--playing Super Mario World, stuck on just a handful of levels, yet I can blaze through the majority of the game in just a few hours tops. My girlfriend, on the other hand, makes Super Mario Bros. 3 look like child's play, and I have trouble beating even a single level.
I agree wholeheartedly that a game needs to be long to be worth the money. For me, if I can't get 20 hours of out a game then for the most part it's not worth it. But difficulty has little to do with that. I played Tales of Symphonia for 40+ hours, loving every single minute of it but never once feeling truly challenged. I revel in a good challenge just the same, but it's only certain types of games which I can put up with the frustration (Space Invaders Extreme, for instance) without just putting it down for something more enjoyable.
I suppose it's just a difference in what we look for in games, but I do not at all consider difficulty necessary for a game to be good.
Difficulty is rather relative, you're right. I'm not saying easy = bad, and I would argue with anyone who would say something of that sort. But if a game is TOO easy (e.g. Phantom Hourglass, Galaxy, Pokemon Diamond/Pearl) it can get boring, fast. Galaxy may not have taken me a short amount of time to beat, but it was so easy I found myself getting bored. I stuck around to get the extra stars for each planet, and about halfway through the game I found myself entering a...whatever they are, the different locations with different planets, such as the Terrace...and the boss planet was already unlocked. I didn't find getting the extra stars to be that fun, even, I just did it for completion, and I found myself able to skip over a bunch of planets entirely if I so wished. I didn't, but still.
There's nothing wrong with a game merely because it offers no challenge -- as I said, I don't find myself challenged by Kirby games, but I still find them awesome and fun. However, easy games CAN be weak, and in general I prefer the challenge of something like Super Metroid or A Link to the Past. That's really my opinion right there, so I wouldn't hold it against you for not agreeing -- suum cuique. But that's why, once I find myself easily rushing through Super Metroid, I make a challenge out of it and speed run it, and why with Metroid Fusion I try ridiculously hard 1% runs.
In regards to Portal, I really can't say for sure as I haven't played the game, (don't murder me, I intend to get the Orange Box ASAP) but considering how hard I've heard the game is, I would probably be let down if it turned out to be pretty easy.
I loved paper Mario the thousand year door. : <
As did I. It's highly frowned upon (at least in comparison to the first), but I really like the game.
Wow... Sumo, dude, go rent Super Mario Galaxy. Ignore any clown who tells you otherwise. Go have some fun with the best title of '07. People are right that it's overall a bit easy, but it's just an absolute joy to play, everything about it is top notch; the controls, the worlds, the graphics, the music, it's all good. It's just really fun, and i still can't think back on it without smiling.
If afterwards you think "Know what? I think Mario 64 was a better game" then that's cool, but I promise you won't find it as awful as you're imagining.
Honestly, I would advise you to rent it as well unless you're convinced it's not even worth the however-many-dollars to rent it (which I personally do, but that's me).
So why did I quote you? To add in my side of the story so the guy doesn't think that a bunch of nattering nabobs of negativity are the only ones against it.
It was not the best title of '07, no matter who says it was. Metroid Prime 3 deserved that. It is easy, to the point of being boring for me. I found it to be annoying. The controls were fine, albeit the camera screwed it up occasionally. You hit left, you go up, that sort of thing. It's the whole planetary aspect that does that. The worlds are pretty cool, I won't deny that. The music is very Disney-esque -- it's orchestrated, and doesn't really even sound like real video game music...most would probably consider that great, but as a huge video game geek I find it offensive and annoying. There's a reason 480 of the 1775 songs on my iPod are video game songs. There's nothing wrong with making it sound more intense, Brawl shows that it works fine, but the way Galaxy did it...ugh, it butchered it. I think the only noteworthy song in the game was a remix of the Bowser's Road song from SM64, and that's because fortunately, they didn't change the style much.
As for finding it as awful as you imagine...if you're like me, you won't. You'll find it much, much worse. (Then again, I wasn't expecting it to be bad. But I didn't really come in with any expectations)
Just my point of view.
