Which games can do Hard mode properly?

[Firuthi Dragovic]

Alright, bit of a serious question with games.

There are plenty of games I know from older times where the only way they did hard mode was modify a few numbers on damage or health. No proper rebalancing, just ticking a few checkboxes.

I'm growing weary of games that are like this. There must be a proper way to make a harder challenge.

Does anyone know any games that actually put thought into their hard modes? I'm primarily looking for shooters (either first or third person) or platformers that can actually do a decent hard mode.

 

[Katara the Sergal]

Alright, bit of a serious question with games.

There are plenty of games I know from older times where the only way they did hard mode was modify a few numbers on damage or health. No proper rebalancing, just ticking a few checkboxes.

I'm growing weary of games that are like this. There must be a proper way to make a harder challenge.

Does anyone know any games that actually put thought into their hard modes? I'm primarily looking for shooters (either first or third person) or platformers that can actually do a decent hard mode.

Naturally, Halo comes to mind for me. Heroic is my go-to for casual solo play, because it's definitely challenging, and you WILL die if you fuck around or don't strategize with what weapons you bring to X part of the level, but as long as you know what you're doing and fight hard, you'll make it through and not die very often. I say "not very often", because still sometimes bullshit happens. If you really want a tough experience, there's always Legendary if you don't mind enemies doing too much damage and having too much accuracy with weapons that are nowhere near as strong nor as accurate when you have them. That's really where it crosses into cheating territory at times, and enemies have the ability to magically dodge grenades, or a tank still fires at you while EMPed. But even still, it's doable once you figure out a strategy to each area, and I like that unlike a lot of games that just have dumb enemies given tons of health and damage, enemies are actually semi-smart. Not really, but they try.

 

[Katara the Sergal]

Naturally, Halo comes to mind for me. Heroic is my go-to for casual solo play, because it's definitely challenging, and you WILL die if you fuck around or don't strategize with what weapons you bring to X part of the level, but as long as you know what you're doing and fight hard, you'll make it through and not die very often. I say "not very often", because still sometimes bullshit happens. If you really want a tough experience, there's always Legendary if you don't mind enemies doing too much damage and having too much accuracy with weapons that are nowhere near as strong nor as accurate when you have them. That's really where it crosses into cheating territory at times, and enemies have the ability to magically dodge grenades, or a tank still fires at you while EMPed. But even still, it's doable once you figure out a strategy to each area, and I like that unlike a lot of games that just have dumb enemies given tons of health and damage, enemies are actually semi-smart. Not really, but they try.

(Just don't fuck around and be a dumbass on Legendary and die to one Grunt like me. )

 

[Mambi]

Alright, bit of a serious question with games.

There are plenty of games I know from older times where the only way they did hard mode was modify a few numbers on damage or health. No proper rebalancing, just ticking a few checkboxes.

I'm growing weary of games that are like this. There must be a proper way to make a harder challenge.

Does anyone know any games that actually put thought into their hard modes? I'm primarily looking for shooters (either first or third person) or platformers that can actually do a decent hard mode.

DOOM 2016 version. You want hard mode...you put it up to the highest...and you will fail. Often. Brutally! Painfully. Frequently. When they say "nightmare" they bloody well MEAN it!! Prepare to have a towel handy for flop sweats after your heart pulses and you eventually get slaughtered by an end boss. <lol>

 

[Wuff-Wuff]

I like thinking of TimeSplitters 2 when it comes to difficulty changes. Oddly enough not even the Hard Mode (which is a beast in of it self), but just the simple jump from "Easy" to "Normal" is great! The story missions are much longer and add a lot more side things to do as well. On top of that, you're less tanky and they reduce item placements. What's great is that the enemies aren't suddenly bullet sponges, I really like that about it.

Hard mode becomes more of a "how well do you know the game" mode. Enemy placement is not random and being caught of guard is mostly the end of your run. You have to know how to approach every situation.
It's quite the fun challenge, but Robot Factory just becomes a bit too brutal IMO. There the bigger robots can actually feel a bit too tanky tbh. It makes sense: they're big hunky metal dudes, but still, it's just brutal.

All in all they did it well I think :3

 

[Thrashy]

I think Doom (the original one) does it right. It adds enemies on harder modes, and of course makes them harder to kill.
It needs you to get to learn the map, and where each enemy spawns. I usually play EP1 in the Ultra Violence difficulty, as it adds a nice challenge.