Easy or Hard?

[alpha5099]

Lots of older games seem to have only two difficulties: Easy and Hard. Easy is usually, but not always, the default.

If Easy is the default, but there's a Normal setting, I'll play on that. But if it's between Easy and Hard, I generally go with Easy. It's my dark little secret.

[CMoon]

Easy, coz I'm a pussy!

[overdrive]

Initially easy, to learn the game and to see if I'd actually like to play it on hard.

Although, technically, I prefer to just use default settings in most cases nowadays, unless I find my skill level isn't sufficient enough to gain some degree of instant enjoyment......

[Ganelon]

If easy is default, then I'll only play on easy unless hard offers more stages or new stuff. If hard is default, I'll only play on hard.

[TWITCHDOCTOR]

I choose factory defaults or normal.

[iatneH]

Yes, I am ashamed I pick Easy as well if it's only between Easy and Hard.

Hellfire and Truxton still kick my ass on Easy (default) though.

The only time I set a game on Hard first was for Vapor Trail. Needless to say, I got my ass kicked. I play it on the default Easy now.

[Ghegs]

Default settings at first, if I like the game enough and want to keep playing it after clearing it I crank up the difficulty.

[adam76]

Whatever default is, so usually easy i'd imagine. The only game i remember seeing 'hard' as default was Kyukyoku Tiger on the MD. I might have gotten away with playing an older 8-bit or 16-bit game on hard but nowadays... !

[yojo!]

I always set the difficulty to "hard" for old shool shooters (pre-manic era). I keep the manic ones on default however.

[BulletMagnet]

I generally start at the bottom of the difficulty ladder and work my way up: this is one of the reasons I like games which keep separate high score tables for different difficulty levels, so I get a better picture of how well I can do at each setting. Most of Psikyo's home ports are pretty ideal for this, as my scores from previous lower-level attempts at the game won't prevent my higher-level efforts from being recorded. I hafta say I really wish that Cave would do something like this in their ports...

[Guardians Knight]

whatever default is.

[professor ganson]

I don't ALWAYS pick default settings. In Harmful Park they made the Easy setting the default, perhaps because it's a cute 'em up that kids can enjoy. The game is much more fun on Normal or Hard for me, and I have at best average skills.

[Jon]

I like most always stick with the default at first. There are rare occasions where I will crank the difficulty up (Star Parodier, Sylphia come to mind.) And yes, on sad occasions I will even turn the difficulty down if I know I will never see the games ending otherwise (curse you Garrega!)

[Nuke]

To repost my reply witch strangely got deleted, I aim for hard theese days, but I used to burn trough everything on easy in my youth.....

[8 1/2]

So many "easy" replies. It's surprising. I don't see the point in learning a game on easy. Outside of Ikaruga (where it really does alter the gameplay) I would just feel like I had wasted my time if I wasn't really pushing myself. I mean, shooters are hard, that's the point. You're going to die a lot, and that's the point too. Watering it down just doesn't make sense.

[The Bullet Dodger]

If, and ONLY if Iam new to the game, then I'll choose "easy", just to get a feel of the gameplay and to see what the game is all about. If I do beat it on "easy", within a few tries, then I'll go right to "hard" for more of a challenge.