Yes, there's always hope!
Yes, self imposed challenges are definitely a thing. In the absence of difficulty from Game Freak, we fans who've wanted a little more more of a challenge like myself have had to get creative. I've come up with a few ways myself, such as switching teams around in BDSP to avoid overleveling.
To be fair, unless you're playing on hard or nightmare, SMT is pretty much a cakewalk too. At least 5 is. I've been playing on normal and the only hard things are the constant grinding and backtracking. The actual game play is as simple as Pokémon's. I mean the same could be said about most JRPGs, even notoriously hard ones, with type match ups. Once you know somethings weaknesses, you're pretty much start one or two shoting them after a while.
Gone are the days when Atlus employees say "we get off on your tears". I suspect by now they've realised that it pays much better to tone down the difficulty so the games can reach a wider audience. I doubt we'll ever get another Atlus game that is a real challenge without turning up the difficulty level.
Not to come off as rude, but I have to ask, if you're more invested in getting through the story, why not watch a walkthrough at that point? Generally speaking, what exactly would the difference be between searching for a playthrough with no commentary on YouTube (or just a compilation of the cinematics, if story's all you're into) and playing through the easiest and least engaging difficulty of the game? And what makes obliterating waves of enemies feel so "cathartic", when they are handicapped to the point where their strategy is non-existent and their attacks barely make a dent in your HP bar and you're so much stronger thanks to the easier difficulty that you don't even have to think about what you do in the game when dealing with them?
Because video games revolve around interaction from the player. Different from watching a movie.
I don't know what else they could do other than making the EXP Share togable, maybe the affection bonuses for the people tired of them. I mean there really isn't anything you can do to make Pokémon any harder especially considering the meta game that needs to be kept consistent.
The affection bonuses are interesting, and they should be kept. I don't know what people are complaining about, considering how difficult the Sinnoh Elite Four are in BDSP and how tough SWSH and it's tournament style was, especially early on.
I skipped BDSP since it didn't look worth it when I already hve Platinum, but I found SwSh the easiest game in the series by far (yeah, even easier than XY. That at least still had challenging battle facilities).
Personally, I think the affection bonuses are cute. But I can see how upped critical hit chances can be annoying. Especially when trying to catch Pokémon.
And that's exactly why I asked what I asked. When your interactions with games boil down to pressing the instant win button or wanting to press the instant win button to get to the stories faster, what is the value that you're getting from playing them? If all you want is to be done with the gameplay as soon as possible so you can get back to the story, why not just watch some walkthroughs or cutscene compilations? Getting to the cutscenes may require you to interact with the game, but once you're in the middle of a cutscene, that interactivity disappears. You don't need to play a game to watch a cutscene and understand a story, so when you'd rather play it on the easiest difficulty possible throughout your playthrough or wish for there to be an "I-win-button", wouldn't it be easier to just search for the cutscenes on YouTube?
I mean, in the case of Pokémon specifically, I agree that a difficulty setting would be the best option, since Game Freak wants to make the games as accessible as possible by keeping them very easy (almost to a laughable degree, at this point, if I'm being honest), while also wanting to appeal to their older fans, some of whom would like to engage in something a bit more challenging. It's I didn't quote any of your previous post, since it was the other stuff that I had a harder time understanding.
I think I get the analogy, but it's not really helping me see or understand the appeal. Wouldn't you get just as much, or perhaps even more, catharsis if you managed to beat an engaging challenge where you actually had to try and give it your best? I'm not saying that you should go for the most insane difficulty where you need to do an hour-long, perfect-frame run just to have a small chance at beating the game. But I think playing on the normal difficulties, at least, and trying to get over some of the more difficult obstacles that a game throws at you might feel more satisfying and rewarding than beating an army of grunts that never stood a chance to begin with, even when you're not even trying. The game basically tests you and your skills and you get to show it that you've got what it takes to beat it, no matter what it may throw at you. If not more satisfying, it would at least be more engaging than just thoughtlessly mashing the same button, while occasionally moving one of your joysticks. To use your own analogy, if there was something that you really wanted to break, but it took more than one swing with your bat to break it, surely it would be cathartic once you finally managed to pull it off and break it, even if it took you more than one try, right? I still don't see how beating a game on a more challenging difficulty, to a reasonable degree, wouldn't feel cathartic. It might not sound that appealing at first. But I'm sure you'd be getting more than enough catharsis out of beating it that game.
Well, the thing about YouTube is that it's an oversaturated market. So, if some channels tend to skip certain paths or some dialogue from a certain game, you'd probably be able others that show you all the paths and endings in that game. Heck, I remember back when I used to watch some channels whose entire videos were about "What if you do X before/after Y in this game?", which would sometimes even reveal some cool Easter Eggs I didn't know about. If you tried, chances are you'd find a video showing you all you'd want to see from a game, even if it may not be from one of the channels you follow or are familiar with. So, again, aside from maybe some aesthetician choices that you wouldn't make, I don't really see the big difference between just watching a video on the game and actually playing the game on the easiest difficulty possible.
I don't think you're alone. People like them. People don't like how omnipresent they have become. Complaints for affection weren't nearly as high in Gen 6 or 7 because they were optional; you didn't have to use it if you didn't want and or you could control the pace of said boosts (and still keep with the immersion). It also becomes glaring that we're the only ones to receive these boosts (are we saying that people like your rival and Champions don't have high friendship with their Pokémon?) in games that are inherently easy to play.
