#difficulty level

With my full playthrough of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, I got to thinking about the different difficulty levels. Despite all being in the same series, the difficulties of each game are very different from one another.

With its heavy emphasis on RPG skills instead of cover-based shooter, the "Insanity" difficulty in ME1 doesn't change the nature of gameplay itself. The combat is definitely harder than the lower levels, but it's still the same game.

With ME2's change to a cover-based shooter emphasis, the "Insanity" difficulty is a whole different arena. Tactics need to be completely changed and different characters are less useful (some of which become nearly pointless outside of certain dedicated missions). Personally, I think some levels are so hard that it crosses over the line from "fun" to "work". I doubt I'll replay this game on Insanity after getting the achievement.

“I was so tired of suffering and now I feel like I actually have a small handle on all the things that used to frustrate me to tears. It’s incredible.”

― • doom: eternal [choose difficulty level] • ―

⋆ I’m too young to die

⋆ hurt me plenty

⋆ ultra-violence

⋆ nightmare

Ahh! No, you have a chance at beating Jacks for sure! But I did want to make it a lot harder (so the skill/condition checks are higher this time), because playing No. 4 on a Div I college team (as a freshman!) is no joke!

I'm glad it's (sorta) working!

Which is to say, everyone wants to emulate From Software (the Paul Greengrass of games) design philosophy, but they don’t seem to understand meat and potatoes of it. So you end up getting a bunch of frustrating imitations of Soulsborne (i.e., imitations of the latter two Bourne films, Supremacy and Ultimatum) that carter to people who make “playing hard games” their entire personality.