Right. I never said fast-paced hack and slash third-person action titles were bad games. There's a bunch of them that I really enjoy--I absolutely LOVE the Ys series, and they can be challenging games in their own right. All I'm saying is that there's a big difference in actual learned/practiced skill requirements in order to advance between these titles.
We can use shmups as an example, too--games like Gradius, R-Type and the like can be challenging, but they're not even remotely close to the difficulty of Touhou, Mushihimesama, Ikaruga and other bullet hell shooters. Bullet hell shmups are so incredibly unforgiving that you're not going to get anywhere at all without considerable practice. Even with infinite lives, you'd never make it past the first stage without either extensive danmaku experience to begin with or lots of practice with the game itself.
Note they also tend to be far slower paced and place an emphasis on avoidance (and with the case of many Touhou titles, grazing enemy shots as a method of scoring) above racking up kills. This is similar to DS, Monster Hunter and the like.
tbh, I find DS to be too unforgiving, just like I find most danmaku titles to be too unforgiving. I get stuck and get bored. That's why I loved TERA so damn much despite its pre-F2P issues--the game had that balance between the slaughterfest hack-and-slash of Ys, GoW, etc (especially in the open world and easier endgame content) paired with the emphasis on avoidance and dodging of DS and MH in the bleeding-edge endgame. It had the best of both worlds and I haven't found anything else that really comes close.
We can use shmups as an example, too--games like Gradius, R-Type and the like can be challenging, but they're not even remotely close to the difficulty of Touhou, Mushihimesama, Ikaruga and other bullet hell shooters. Bullet hell shmups are so incredibly unforgiving that you're not going to get anywhere at all without considerable practice. Even with infinite lives, you'd never make it past the first stage without either extensive danmaku experience to begin with or lots of practice with the game itself.
Note they also tend to be far slower paced and place an emphasis on avoidance (and with the case of many Touhou titles, grazing enemy shots as a method of scoring) above racking up kills. This is similar to DS, Monster Hunter and the like.
tbh, I find DS to be too unforgiving, just like I find most danmaku titles to be too unforgiving. I get stuck and get bored. That's why I loved TERA so damn much despite its pre-F2P issues--the game had that balance between the slaughterfest hack-and-slash of Ys, GoW, etc (especially in the open world and easier endgame content) paired with the emphasis on avoidance and dodging of DS and MH in the bleeding-edge endgame. It had the best of both worlds and I haven't found anything else that really comes close.
attractive enmity device