2 games come to mind Half Life 1 or 2 dont remember , was cruising along enjoying the game and I go to a rising column platform thing 3 rising platform things and had to jump from one to the next to the next could not do it could not advance do not pass go do not collect $$$

second was in a God Of War again dont remember which one ps2 or 3 and it was a fight that consisted of rapidly pressing a singular button to fill a gauge again just could not get it done

both of these stick out in my mind because I liked the game but there was simply NO WAY for me to proceed it was beyond my capabilities

kind of funny considering I played and finished Demon Souls

If these games had accessibility options menus that would have allowed you to make those parts easier (or bypass them entirely), would you have continued enjoying those games?

(I'm thinking along the lines of the accessibility options appearing in VVVVVV and Celeste.)

Also, from your description of the second example, it sounds like it basically required you to press a button rapadly, and as such a turbo controller would have allowed you to pass that part. Is that accurate? (If so, it's a lot like the Chrono Trigger example I've mentioned a lot.)

The answer to both questions is yes

Sounds like the Aline planet at the end of HL1, where it turns into half mario. That was a dreadful bit. You are close to the end there, and it’s just a matter of getting a feel for the weird gravity.

Don’t remember any of the god of war games being particularly hard. There was one bit where you had to move a crate, flick a switch and then do a double jump or something which was literally to the exact second. Otherwise didn’t notice any issues. Perhaps place the controller between your knees and rapidly press the button (or get a kid to do it for you).

There are so many games with hard bits though, most old games have hair tearing difficulty.

Another approach, of course, is to use the game's cheat mode/console if it offers one. When it comes to offline single player modes, there's no shame in cheating to get past a part that just isn't fun; remember that the goal of (most) videogames is to have fun!

With that said, you might want to back-up your save *before* you start tinkering with the cheat console; it's possible to do things that can break the game in various ways, leading to issues like softlocks, for example.

If the game is more fun with a bit of cheating, feel free to cheat as much as you need to! (Just remember that too much cheating can ruin the fun, so be careful.)

as to half life for me it would never be about getting used to weird gravity I simply dont do platforming at all even back then when I was 20+ years younger I lacked the hand eye co-ordination reflexes and I would not even think about it these days it was just so out of place with the rest of the game

I always found platforming sections a bad idea in first person games.

this was back 20+ years ago not going back there now :)

I don't disagree, found it a ridiculous part of the game. Really a mes of the end of a good game.

it was just so out of place with the rest of the game

It sounds like your problem wasn't so much the game being difficult, but rather that the game had the *wrong* type of difficulty, like when there's an unexpected genre change.

I remember, some time ago, a topic where the topic creator complained about Albion, otherwise a turn-based game, having a real-time section near the end, that the TC could not get past. Ultima 1 also does something like this.

This also reminds me of Final Fantasy X, in which, in order to have a chance against the post-game bosses, you had to power up your characters' celestial weapons. The problem, however, is that powering up many of them requires that you play mini-games that are both difficult and out-of-genre (like having to complete a chocobo race with a reported time less than 0, and having to dodge 200 lightning bolts, all in a game where combat is turn-based). Then again, the postgame is poorly designed, and it's much more interesting to watch no sphere grid challenges (except that, of course, the cutscenes are not skippable).

(In other words, the problem you had with those two games can be summed up with the sentence I quoted.) Well, you might run into another game where the developers made the poor design decision of putting in a difficult mandatory out-of-genre challenge.

I played FF X its actually one of my all time faves I do not remember having the issue you speak of NOT to say it was not there I just either did not have it or dont remember..... as to Half Life yes the aspect was out of place but for most I imagine it was not the deal breaker like it was for me.... as to GOW I was not very far in so who knows if it was out of place I suspect not it just made the game a no go for me..... there was an issue in Bioshock that was rather messed up for ME there was a game changing choice that HAD to be made in order to continue and I VEHEMENTLY disagreed with ALL of the presented choices I actually put the game down for quite a while before deciding to just "grin and bear it"...there was also a thing in Batman Arkham something or another which had a SEVERE perspective change it reversed or something that was a royal PITA but got by it, these days any game with platforming aspects its just a solid NO with the exception of borderlands which is a no die no start over so its just an irritant instead of a deal breaker

The only annoying difficulty aspect of first person shooters for me is when they are lazy in designing the difficulty. E.g. only doubling enemy health points. Quake IV did this from what I remember: on medium a Strogg foot soldier takes 2 shotgun blasts up close to take down, but on hard it takes 4. It's more challenging sure, but not in a fun way

Not as bad as Oblivion's hardest difficulty, where enemies take 6 times as many hits to kill and do 6 times as much damage.

Then again, sometimes changes here can matter in a strategically significant way; in a turn based game, an enemy that dies in one round won't get a chance to attack if you're faster than it, where if it takes two rounds to die, it will. Similarly, an enemy that can kill you in one hit is far more dangerous than one that can *almost* kill you, especially if you are capable of healing yourself.

But when everything dies in 1-2 Shotgun blasts, the game can get pretty boring too. A typical example of this would be Duke Nukem 3D. You can 2 shot the majority of the enemy roster with the Shotgun. Why use any other weapons when you can just Shotgun through the entire game?

I have to play Duke 3D these days with enemies having at least a 60% damage reduction to incoming damage for the game to not feel super easy.

I never understood why people have such aversion to enemies that can take a beating these days, while I hate how everything dies from just a single headshot or two in every new FPS game. That is why Doom is still one of the best in this regard. It has enemies with HP ranging from 20-4000, offering huge variety.

With RPGs like Fallout or Elder Scrolls, the problem is that the highest difficulty makes the early game extremely hard, but once you reach the end-game, it gets easy anyway.