Editor's note: What do Demon's Souls and Ikaruga have in common? Chris knows, and he shares that insight with us. Do you appreciate punishingly difficult games? -Jason

Demon's Souls has nestled into its spot on gamers' shelves by now. A few weeks ago, I was really enjoying all of the articles about hard games as seen on Kotaku, 1UP, and here on Bitmob, too. Interestingly for me, though I have not played Demon's Souls, I was reeling from similar in-game punishment from another game: Ikaruga.

My praise of difficulty in games is biased; it's probably not as eloquent as others' articles; and it is not all-encompassing. It is, however, important to me.

Japanese game developers may not have invented hard games, but they have perfected certain types of hard games. The shoot-em-up is a great example. Most of us have probably seen this video:

I understand that this type of gameplay does not appeal to many gamers. Bitmob's Andrew Fitch, formerly of 1UP, said modern Japanese shooters miss the point of the genre -- they're more about dodging than shooting. But I don't mean to define “shoot-em-up” in this article. Rather, I want to laud this type of gameplay as a personal preference.

I finally got into shoot-em-ups with a Japanese game called Death Smiles. Since then I've sampled many but purchased one -- the re-release of Ikaruga on Xbox Live Arcade. I've spent hours going over the first few stages, learning the enemy patterns, creating movement patterns for my own ship, perfecting my polarity shifts, and most importantly, playing the same shit over and over and over.

But that's my point! It's easy to denigrate shoot-em-ups as “short,” like fighting games and arcade beat-em-ups. The point of these “short” games, however, isn't breadth but depth. Shoot-em-up developers don't try to extend the length of the game to that of an RPG; instead they make each moment difficult, or at least complex.

This style of game -- one that's short but infinitely replayable -- is psychologically important to me. I have less time to play games as I get older, and I strongly appreciate the ability to play a game for a few minutes at a time -- or more realistically, a game that only lets me play it for a few minutes at a time.

In short (future pun intended), it's the minutiae that count in Ikaruga. Knowing your hit-box size, every single enemy's color and entry onto the screen, chaining, and polarity (and ultimately score) are the point of the game. This is so radically different from other games, and it is somehow incredibly attractive to me.

I like Ikaruga in part because of its brevity and endless replay value. The feeling of accomplishment is heightened by the difficulty (welcome back, Demon's Souls). Sure, you can spam credits and blaze through it if you want, but default restrictions are not as such. And unlike RPGs, Ikaruga is so short that it doesn't need save points. This alleviates the “Dammit, I died and haven't saved in 3 hours” despair of much longer games. You will die a lot in Ikaruga (or Mushihimesama and other shoot-em-ups), but the punishment is minimized because dying is the point. They're similar to roguelikes in this way -- dying is the player's path to understanding more about the game and how to win.

I don't mean to push this genre on gamers who find it unsavory; rather, I want to articulate, however poorly, my love of this idea. You might call it one of the primeval philosophies of playing video games, next to competitive playing. Though its graphics are middling, its single campaign is about 45 minutes long. Everything is exactly the same, every time, and it wants you to fail.

Ikaruga has sucked me in. It has convinced me that difficulty ought to remain high in at least some games.