Hardcore+Gaming


 * Hardcore Gaming** is the method/style of gaming which is defined by either having or requiring an extremely high level of skill in a game. Some games (particularly older ones) have this as a standard, with quick reflexes and reactions being paired up with quick and high level thinking, along with endurance and patience. Meanwhile, other games have ordinary levels of difficulties yet some individuals impose special rules or goals on themselves in order to make the game a challenge again**.** Another example of hardcore gaming is when fans of a game go so far as to hack a game to edit and crank the difficulty up to seemingly insane levels, or convince the developers to re-release special versions of the games, or improve difficulty rates in sequels.

__Super Ghouls and Ghosts__, released in November 1991 by Capcom for the Super Nintendo, is a prime example of a game being designed as a "hardcore" game. Focusing on a knight's quest to save the princess from demons, SGG offered an incredibly challenging adventure. Enemies and projectiles come from all directions, many weapons are ineffective, jump controls are well programmed but unforgivingly challenging, and seemingly unfair situations arise constantly. The particularly aggravating bits are that the player never truly upgrades armor, meaning they will always be killed in two hits. Pair this up with everything being incredibly dangerous, and the result was even with virtually infinite continues (on the easiest mode) the game seemed impossible. As a final insult/challenge to the player, if they reached the "end" of the game, they were returned to the start, being forced to do a second play-through using an extremely ineffective weapon in most cases, and without any saving feature to take a break. [|An example of SGG's first stage]

__Kaizo Mario World__, a fan-hack of Ninendo's Super Mario World, is considered one of the most famous hacks of the game, as well as a commonly cited example of a ridiculously hard hack. Designed to be played on SNES emulators instead of the actual console, Kaizo takes into account the emulators' abilities to slow down gameplay and savestate/rewind (allowing the player to reverse gameplay to fix mistakes and instantly try again at no penalty) the game, and brings the difficulty up accordingly. Players are forced to make jumps with pixel-perfect precision, dodge hoards of enemies without power-ups, react to changes instantly, and do so in a short time limit. The result is an incredibly difficult game, even with tools, which is often made into a source of entertainment in gaming communities. Players often post videos of attempts to beat the game, doing so either unsuccessfully or extremely painfully and most often with more foul language than the average rap song. [|Kaizo Mario's first level.]

__Speed Runs__ are the act of completing a game as quickly as possible. Players set certain goals (100% completion VS. minimal completion, natural playing VS. emulator tools, etc) and finish the game quickly by those standards. While many games are certainly possible under normal circumstances, they become much more difficult if the player no longer takes the time to aim, dodge, or wait for a safer method, instead blazing through the game using spot-on reflexes and often glitch abuse in order to pull the goal off. Games from Nintendo franchises such as Zelda and Mario are often targeted for such goals. [|Super Mario 64 being completed in under 6 minutes using bugs and tools].

Many players enjoy a challenge, and look to developers for those challenges, and some will go even farther and create the challenge themselves. These are just a few examples of hardcore gaming.