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As a child, I assumed that adulthood meant I could game as much as I wanted. Unfortunately, as most people over the age of 18 can attest, with maturity come responsibilities, and those take time. As a result, I am currently fighting a losing battle against my gaming pile of shame. Currently, I own at least 10 titles that I haven’t started or am only partway through.

Increasingly frustrated, I started rushing through games just to finish them. That strategy, however, proved to suck a lot of the fun out of the hobby. That was when I got a new idea: Play games on easy.

It was a brilliant plan. Playing on easy would allow me to spend my time more efficiently without feeling a need to rush through content. I quickly selected Dragon Age: Origins as my first “easy” game.

 

Dragon Age was a game I started and never completed. I didn’t remember much about my original character, so I opted to start fresh. Initially, all was well. Then I reached the difficulty menu and attempted to choose easy. Immediately, I began to rethink my plan.

Easy difficulty in Dragon Age is actually called casual mode, which initially sounds much better than easy. But that wasn’t my problem. What was making me hesitate was that BioWare describes casual mode as being for people who haven’t played many role-playing games.

“That’s not true!” I immediately thought. “I’ve played plenty of RPGs; I’m good at them!”

I hesitated at that menu screen for several minutes and mulled over my options, but ultimately I picked casual mode as planned. Any residual guilt I felt faded by the end of the night when I realized that I was progressing through the game twice as fast as I had in my first attempt.

Within a week, I completed the game and loved every minute of it. Even so, I don’t think I’ll be playing all the games I’m trying to beat on the lowest difficulty.

Dragon Age is a game that isn’t necessarily hurt by being experienced on the easiest setting. For me, the best parts of BioWare's epic fantasy were the characters and story choices. I didn’t want to play it for the challenge of the battle system but rather to interact with the world and party members.

On the other hand, look at Demon’s Souls. If I were able to switch the From Software RPG to easy mode, I still wouldn’t — even if that means I never reach the end. That’s because the developer made Demon’s Souls to be a difficult experience. While it does have a story and characters, the atmosphere of the game is felt though its unyielding battle system. Playing on easy would make combat seem meaningless in the greater context of the game.

So, what does the community think? Did I completely wimp out by playing on easy? Or did easy mode give me the opportunity to play a game I would otherwise have never completed?

Originally posted at digitalhippos.com.