Yeah, I think I agree.
Like, in my mind, the Cuphead devs have sought to make a challenging game. They've made a concession by including an easier mode, but they want players to play at the intended difficulty, to have that particular experience, so they've incentivised it with exclusive content.
One of the sentiments I've seen a fair bit is whether it's elitist or a barrier for greater accessibility in games to deny a player content or progress when they can't get over a difficulty hurdle. Should every game accomodate for every player and let em get to the finish line by skipping levels and bosses? Basically the "books don't stop me from reading the next page but games do" argument.
I can kinda feel this argument moreso in cinematic story-based games i guess, where the main reward for progression is generally distinct from the actual gameplay - the story continues. But a lot of games are much more mechanically driven, where e.g. the reward for beating a level is more levels. and you wanna get more levels because the new levels are interesting. and the interest manifests because the new levels offer a new challenge and the gameplay escalates.
So I guess the recent discussion has come about because of a mismatch in peoples expectations and desires for Cuphead? There's an audience that is primarily interested in the game for its art and the reward they want is to see more of its art. And contrary to that is the dev's intentions which is to make a mechanically-driven boss rush game with a unique art style, where the reward for progression is more elaborate and challenging bosses. (side note: i think i read an interesting article once about art style informing gameplay and audience expectations, maybe i'll find it again some day)
Idk I'm writing a lot of words about the design of a game I haven't actually played.
But yeah I feel difficulty is a cool design choice that the medium allows for, and I dunno if I entirely agree with the notion players should be able to skip whatever in
any game when so often difficulty is intertwined with narrative, or getting player to feel a particular way. Like that one boss at the end of the evil Undertale route is very difficult, but that's storytelling, and even the player retrying the boss over and over (or giving up even) is implicit and explicit storytelling. And the impact of that would be lost if you could just tone it down.
And some devs just want to make a game that is difficult. I think that's cool! But I don't think difficulty or challenge is some necessity of games. It's important that there are lots of different people making lots of different games for different audiences, and I don't really like the idea that 'being good at games' means 'can beat difficult games'.
I've not really built up to any big conclusion here... just mostly trying to rationalise my thoughts to myself by writing them down. Look forward to next time when i write about my increasing insecurities regarding games being about killing or dying