at first you may expect this to be a gatekeepy article talking about how much an easy mode would ruin "based miyazakis vision" but that's not what this is at all, i'm wholley in support of this being added and i hope it some day is, i moreso want to talk about the culture around it, how tone deaf it is and how just funny it is how a fanbase that decrays the ruination of their favourite games with accessability over their love of an artistic vision actualy have no clue what the heck they're even talking about.

so first off, should it have an easy mode at all, again it's not really what this is about but yes they should, players will already use glitches and cheese strats to win in the first place so it's not like everyone who does want to play will follow the ridged structure these people think they will, it's just a toggle in a menu, hell make it that you cant change it after you start a new game if you want, but it wont change the design at all, games like stranger of paradise have shown this, that's still a very hardcore game but it has an easy mode and it makes it very accesasable and fun, hell i even find it more fun on easy which made it a better game to me, why not afford that to souls to? well i mean the answer is easy isn't it, it's gatekeeping and elitism, shocker i know, but it's really that simple, some may claim it's a part of "preserving the artistic integrety" but these people will too happily then turn around and lap up the demons souls remake, a remake that actively disregards artists visions in order to dilute its base game into something more bland and sellable to these same people who will scream from the rooftops about artistic integety, do you really think the original composer wanted his game to have a generic LOTR knock off OST when he composed something wholley original instead? did the art directors secretly want the dragon god and flamelurker to look like blizzad WOW enemies instead of the horror inspired designs they originally went for? of course they didn't, but these same people will praise this game despite it's complete disregard for the original games art direction and intent, this *is* ruining the artistic integrety, so tell me, in this ruination of that original game, where's the easy mode? it doesn't have one, it was ruined all on its own and many of these same people who will decry the idea of an easy mode will even call this the better version. i do intend to cover the demons souls remake on its own one day because i think it's an interesting case study in just how much remakes can dilute something really unique and beautiful into a more bland paste so they can sell it with nicer graphics, which is fine to them because at least it preserves the only thing they seem to care about, the difficulty, i guess artistic integrety really isn't that important to them.

personally i'm not a big souls fan, not necessarily because of the difficulty but because i'm just not into how fairly safe a lot of them feel vs froms earlier catalogue, i'm an fan of old fromsoft you see, enchanted arms, lost kingdoms and otogi, metal wolf chaos, kuri kuri mix and ninja blade, i liked their style and variety, something souls just lacks for me, i'll play some of the more recent games eventually but the appeal just isn't there for me, i do enjoy demons souls a lot on ps3 and i even quite liked dark souls, albiet not as much, but the lack of an easy mode isn't my reason for that, it's just that i don't vibe with their style now and i think that a lot of souls elitists don't take that into account, not everyone plays games for the same reasons, i play for vibes and styles, stories and characters and gameplay is often the last thing i consider, that digital ego test people go to these games for just doesn't appeal to me, i want to see interesting sights, hear interesting music and meet interesting people and an easy mode would enhance that just in terms of getting me to those things faster, sure i can beat these games as is, i'm not great at games but i've managed to beat a few but that grind to see them just wasn't as worth it to me, an easy mode wouldn't "cheat me out of the experiance" but would enhance it, but then again i'm a woman playing these games so these same kinds of people don't exactly want me here to begin with considering how much of this has turned into a culture war issue from bitter, bigoted men who want less "others" in their spaces, you see a lot of sexism, ablism and even some LGBT hate sprinkled here and there in these convos, it's became a culture war grift for these men to push an agenda that started all the way back during gamergate, the notion that "casuals and journos" (translation: women and minorities) are here to ruin games by enjoying them differently or in ways they may not understand, which is, yeah it's a nasty group of people and i mean really all i have to say about them is that well, they lost, women and minorities are here to stay and the industry is better for it, i've been through some shit, gamergate, gatekeepy forums, creepy guys who's first thought when they see or hear a woman is to ask for feet pics, enough bullshit rumours and accusations to last me several lifetimes and i'm not going anywhere and i will keep writing about games, while i have left much of the net sphere because i believe social media is toxic and harmful and youtube as a platform i think has damaged peoples views on media very badly, i won't be run off of here by the likes of that and i don't believe many will chose to leave either, it's not 2014 anymore and these people are not the majority, for as much as they may wish to make it seem so, a vocal minority is still a minority.