Reviewing Difficulty

Here is another section that needs work for some reviewers: the Difficulty section.

I have to say this first: Do not rate the difficulty of a game from 1 to 10 based on how hard the game is, especially if you are doing averages, which is a very tacky method of reviewing, since not all of the categories of the game are equally important (Retro fanatics have over-stressed this: "Graphics are not as important as gameplay". Come on, tell us something we have not already heard so many other times). And it is all the more flawed if one of the categories is not a direct measure of how good a part of a game is. Instead, score that category based on how good the difficulty curve is. Even the most notoriously difficult games have a few easy levels to start you off with. Super Mario Brothers 2: The Lost Levels had an excellent difficulty curve, one that you would find in normal games. In games that are nonlinear, such as Mega Man platformers (obviously) and the Mario Golf series, rate the learning curve, which is how quickly you can get the hang of the game, or just do not have that section at all.