No one likes a tryhard.


This notion pushes some even deeper into the realm of absurdity, as they then double down, and try harder to become the “tryhardiest”…a self-damning effort, if I’ve ever witnessed one

I mentioned briefly in my last Silksong article, in what I would consider me half joking about putting out too many Doom articles when The Dark Ages launched, to still also be half serious in the assertion it is attached to. I often enjoy trading in the paradoxical, not due to the want of confusing others, more so that I find reality to be quite queer, so many observations and happenings within the realm will follow suit. I digress to my previous point, in echoing sentiments of “having something to say” in the reference of putting out creative works, or in my case just writing in general. I know for some people it is their job to kind of improv some bullshit out of thin air, due to having a deadline they need to fill or a quota they are following suit on. I get that, and it’s one of the reasons I’m only slightly relieved I need not worry about such forced levels of production, lest I be lost in the drudgery of repetitious monotony.

The extraordinary irony of all of this is that I’m still in the midst of forcing myself to write everyday, pro bono of course, so I have the same problems I am forsaking out loud in terms of wanting to reject the idea of insane work ethic attached to writing, while also still adhering to them, simultaneously not getting paid for it. A lose/lose kind of situation if my perspectives on what constitutes “value” were way out of wack, but I’m comfortable and content with my current self-moderated lot in life, though the irony makes me chuckle so. This relates to why I haven’t written a full fledged article on Diddy Kong Racing as of yet, but that’s a story I’ve already touched on slightly before.

So yes, I am sticking to my guns for the moment, and by way of attempted intentionality, by not having this quickie of a writeup be about Silksong “explicitly”, but difficulty in general, though I may fail that intention in five minutes time. Either way, I will wax philosophical for just a brief moment involving a topic that was inspired recently by the title, and a subject of interest that has no end in sight at hand within the context of the gaming community: difficulty. Something that was partly a focus of my last Silksong article, which I felt the need to touch upon, but only as a result of zeitgeist relevancy. I think I mentioned there that I’m somewhat of a challenge junkie, so stuff like Silksong really doesn’t push my buttons the same way it does others, but I am not everyone, and a lot of everyone else is just a smidge fucking pissed off at some of the horseshit Silksong is shoveling.

This is backed up by the notion of a not so silent minority, who have made mods for the game already on the PC, many of which involve making the game easier, though it looks like Team Cherry seemingly agrees, as the first patch for the game is scaling back the difficulty on the early content, debuffing some of the bosses that seemed to have claimed players lives the most, like Moor Wing, for example. I get both sides of the debate, honestly, so annoyingly, that does put me in the middle camp of proclaiming “let’s listen to both sides” side mouthing nonsense that people understandably loathe. In my defense, this is the gaming realm which I hold that position, and not within the political spectrum, so put your pitchforks away please, and let us speak reasonably for a second.

What makes part of this conversation interesting, is that I recently wrote an article entitled “Death to the Dev”, which detailed many things, the first part of the duology of articles I released addressing my points of interest involved how I didn’t like developers id messing around with the balancing of Doom: The Dark Ages, as a late game, higher difficulty playthrough (such as I was doing on Nightmare) ended up being greatly affected by a patch that rebalanced tons of enemies, so my “battle math” I got use to ended up being completely wrong after the fact, and I ended up dying left and right, having to retrain myself to play once again. Which…minorly annoying from the jump, and could have led to much bigger issues if the context was different, but it led me to defending the notion that outside of game breaking bugs, devs should kind of leave single player alone, with the idea that it belongs to the gamers once it’s released, and should basically stand on it’s own merits, warts and all.

This obviously precludes me in thinking that the difficulty adjustment Team Cherry is putting out for Silksong is justified, based on those very metrics I put out. I however, do understand why they are doing it, and don’t necessarily think people are wrong in wanting it, and both sentiments can be true at the same time. It would be a lot easier to angle this article as more of a ragebait fest, in decrying either Team Cherry for ruining their artistic vision with the alterations by making it easier, or pointing my fingers at the masses and complaining about people being too soft when it comes to challenge, or picking up a title without not doing more research about it.

But nah, I get it. It doesn’t excite me, I didn’t need it, and it’s not for me…but I get it. Where the other players are coming from, why Team Cherry wants to accommodate them, the relevant reasons of technology that makes this democratzation process of video gaming so laudable, all the while not being someone who directly benefits from it.

As I said…reality is quite queer in that way, and thusly, observations about it that follow suit.

~Pashford