Hard games are something I usually quite enjoy. If you were to come to me and tell me that a game presents an above average challenge I'm probably going to buy it. When a game has multiple difficulty options I'm the kind of person to jump straight into hard mode and completely ignore the normal or easy settings. I'm not saying this to flex any kind of gaming cred, of course, I'm merely pointing it out so that when I go on to call Wings of Vi "bullshit" in the next few paragraphs, I'm being genuine rather than just throwing my toys out of the pram because I died a bunch of a couple of bosses.
Difficulty is a hard thing for a lot of developers to get right and generally speaking I find that the best games in this aspect don't even have difficulty settings to speak of. 3D Mario games are one example of this where you can usually beat the game with only 70 of the stars/shines/dragon dildos or whatever but for players looking for extra challenge can find it in post game content or in challenging courses when trying to 100% the game. Another example would be Celeste, a challenging platformer that presents the player with no difficulty settings in the traditional sense but instead gives a reasonable challenge to all players and then ramps up the difficulty in post game content such as B sides, Golden Berries and Farewell. Dark Souls would be another good example of this where some basic knowledge of the games systems and adapting to the combat a little will get you through all the games story bosses, but extra bosses and self imposed challenges can help bring up the challenge for people who want a bit of punishment.
Bad difficulty, I find, usually comes in the form of settings that one must pick at the start of the game. The one that stands out extremely clear in my mind was Nier on PS3 where the hard mode just increased enemy damage and health to the point where almost all the battles were just long slogfests and death would be brought about by a loss of attention due to boredom rather than the game being actually hard. The other bad example I can think of is Dante's Inferno, also on PS3 where the higher difficulty levels were designed specifically around New Game Plus and the carrying over of skills and stats. Sure it's POSSIBLE to beat Dante's Inferno on hard from a new game, but it's not fun because you feel like you're playing with your hands tied behind your back rather than because the game is actually any harder than it was on normal. From what I understand, Resident Evil 8 does a similar thing but I've still not played that yet so I can't say for sure.
Then there's bullshit games like Wings of Vi. Funnily enough Wings of Vi actually does present you with difficulty settings that change the number of checkpoints and enemy damage but again, nothing actually interesting out side of "die less and jump better". But the problems in Wings of Vi are much more than that in both platforming and combat. Platforming bullshit comes in the form of challenges and obstacles that 1) You can't see before it's too late and 2) Aren't obviously clear how to get around them. Platforming in Vi is extremely precise and the game is almost more of a puzzle experience in this regard than a straight platformer. Working out which combination of jumps and wing flutters you have to do is difficulty and can be pretty satisfying to achieve when you get it down. However there are often points in the game where you will be presented with a jumping challenge, you practice and die and attempt to clear it and eventually you get it, only for the screen to shift and you get given more instant death spikes with no time to react and no time to work out what the hell you were supposed to do. Back to the checkpoint with you, idiot. A good example of this is a section that involves dashing through rhythmically moving worms. The timing on the jumps and dashes to get through but when you get above the section you have to make a diagonal dash to safety through an enemy and onto a platform that you CANT FUCKING SEE. So yeah, har har you got me with the sudden direction change and enemy placement but the death isn't my fault. Maybe if you had shown me that before I would have made it through but you just covered my eyes for a stupid "gotcha" moment.
The bosses aren't much better where the first 10-50 attempts will be just adapting to whatever attack pattern the enemy has and then every attempt after that is just doing it until you can that one "in the zone" run where you pull it all off. One boss however, a giant 3 headed worm in a perpetually moving tunnel with floating platforms can make you lose runs to it just not working. The bosses chases you left to right in phase 1, top to bottom in pase 2 and the left to right in phase 3. The shift from phase 2 to phase 3 will ALWAYS bug out, I never saw it work properly once and you will die to platformings not spawning and leaving you trapped to take a big chunk of damage. Bosses that do work right, like Ancient Constructs, aren't any better though, starting off reasonable and then just becoming jank Touhou by the end.
Sure, Wings of Vi and games like it are extremely satisfying to get through but "bet you didn't see that coming" platforming and "bullet hell with a jumbo jet" aren't fun to experience, it's just bullshit bad design so that idiots like me can say that we bashed our head off the wall long enough to get it done. There's a reason Celeste, Dark Souls and games like it will be celebrated forever and shit like Wings of Vi will be forgotten and fade into obscurity
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