Sima Tuna wrote:Many arcade games seem to follow the standard "one easy level, then difficulty cranked to 11 from that point onwards" philosophy. Whereas modern attempts at "retro" games usually go the other way, with a middling, low difficulty which extends across the entire game evenly, padded with a lot of extraneous fluff. But I prefer it when games use a relatively even difficulty curve that culminates at the high end. I think Fight 'n' Rage does this very well, actually. Assuming you take the route which skips the autoscrolling sewer level (a low point of the game imo), the difficulty generally ramps up as you continue through the levels. The major difficulty spikes happen with the introduction of new enemy types, but those intros are kept modest (one or two dobermans at a time, then a large break before you see another one) rather than overwhelming the player with BS.
For my part, I don't like when arcade games take their damn time to ramp up the difficulty, because it's all about the replayability. I hate so many first stages, be it in beat'em up or any arcade genre really. Although they make sense the first time, they become so boring after that. I love Ikaruga, but the first two stages are so slow and boring, and so I never replay it just because of that.
You've got some long beat'em up that keep introducing new basic enemies during the last stage! SOR4 is particularly guilty of that. If there wasn't a fantastic randomizer mod for this game, I'll never play it, because the full run is about 1.5 hour, and about 3/4th of it is just a very long and slow ramp, introducing new enemy one at a time...
If the difficulty has to go from one to seven, and it's 7 stages long, I want it to be like 4-5-6-6-6-7-7 and not 1-2-3-4-5-6-7.
Also, I do like when the last battle is next to impossible. This is something shmup are not shy off. You went to the last boss with one credit? Then here's a final form that will absolutely destroy you! But it's extremely rare in beat'em up. Crime Fighters 1 and 2 get it right. Crime Fighters 1 might have the hardest battle in any beat'em up ever. It's just every fkn bosses but at the same time lol. But what's great is those games basically give you the ending scene, the congrats and all, and then here, bonus stage! Get rekt!
I like it because you always have something higher to aim for. When I love a game, I like to keep having higher goals (survival wise). An insane 2nd loop is also a great way to do this. Also something common in shmup but very rare in beat'em up. Crime Fighters 3 does this (though I'd prefer if the 2nd loop was the standard one). So getting back to my difficulty curve, I want it to be 4-5-6-6-6-7-7-ending scene-2nd loop-6-7-7-7-8-8-9-2nd ending scene-10 (bonus stage).