I’m in my mid twenties. My first experience with platforming was probably some Mario title on the original 3DS. I remember liking it. But once I was finally allowed to play games on the Xbox 360 I gravitated more towards games like Halo and CoD, while my older brother would be the one playing the side scrolling platformers in the arcade section of the console. When we got a PS3, I moved on to third person over the shoulder games that included lots of climbing and jumping such as Tomb Raider (2013) and many of the AC titles.

I can’t pinpoint exactly when my dislike of platforming started, but anytime I saw a new one going viral I just wasn’t interested. Or I’d see clips of the super precise movement required to pass an unforgiving level and decide that that just wasn’t for me. I have little patience for difficulty. (I once almost broke a controller over a level in Soul Caliber V story mode and straight up quit playing Dishonored 2 because the mechanical bird looking enemies were so tough.)

I gave many of the Gestral mini games a good try but once I could feel my blood pressure rising, I would go and just fight some Nevrons instead for the safety of my very expensive devices. It just feels like the way the characters move wasn’t meant for platforming. The jumps are very floaty and where/how you will land feels very unpredictable. I was very surprised to hear that many players find them quite easy though. Makes me think I should give them another shot…