Biggest Difficulty Spike You Have Ever Experienced
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I'm playing and loving Tomb Raider on PC. Very enjoyable, playable on easy. Exactly the sort of game I want. Then, all of a sudden, I have so many bad guys trying to kill me that, rather than having fun, I'm stressed out!
One of the most beautiful games with terrific art direction, that I have ever played, is Alice Madness Returns. It is gorgeous, but even with cheats, many reviewers have noted: this game, on easy, is still fricken hard!!! That difficulty is ruining the experience that would otherwise be great!
While playing, a buddy smashed his keyboard and chucked the disc into a wall. If your doing things like that, he noted, you aren't having a good time. I agree.
You want hard? Play on hard. But when a game programmer offers and easy choice, it should be fricken easy! If I get through it fast, let me decide if it wasn't worth the money.
One of the most beautiful games with terrific art direction, that I have ever played, is Alice Madness Returns. It is gorgeous, but even with cheats, many reviewers have noted: this game, on easy, is still fricken hard!!! That difficulty is ruining the experience that would otherwise be great!
While playing, a buddy smashed his keyboard and chucked the disc into a wall. If your doing things like that, he noted, you aren't having a good time. I agree.
You want hard? Play on hard. But when a game programmer offers and easy choice, it should be fricken easy! If I get through it fast, let me decide if it wasn't worth the money.
The first level of Age of Wonders 2: The Wizard's Throne was crazy difficult after the lax pace of the tutorial. You start out with one unit and no settlement against an entrenched and well supplied enemy. The game tech tree is completely open for both you and the enemy from the start, so there's no gradual introduction of units or challenge. If you don't play aggressively you'll end up crushed. The first time I beat that level on hard was one of the more satisfying moments in video games for me. I left a path of destruction as I burned out every last Tigran city marching on Yaka's fortress. A few levels later, I beat Nimue by razing all the teleportation gates and flooding the world with the wetlands spell so I could take full advantage of airships. You could do commit some serious war crimes in that game.
It was really disappointing how much easier the game became afterwards.
It was really disappointing how much easier the game became afterwards.
The last boss in the EU version of Zone of Enders 2, the NA version was apparently too easy so they buffed it. A lot. After trying and getting nowhere, and just wanting to see the ending I used Action Replay to activate an invincibility cheat. Except it wasn't true invincibility, it just reduced damage by a factor of 1000. And it still took 2 goes.
In the first Advanced Wars, there is a major difficulty spike right at the final fight. Everything was enjoyably challenging up until that point. However, that final boss was an absolute pain due to how difficult he was compared to previous battles. I don't think I ever did manage to beat him.
There was also Allied Assault's Sniper Town level. The game up until that point was actually rather easy. There were some challenging points, but nothing that left you absolutely lost on how to beat it. Sniper town, though...Oh, boy, was that thing a nightmare the first few times. Try having well-hidden enemies with near-perfect accuracy that on Normal take out 1/10 of your health with each shot (about 1/5 on Hard I believe). Oh, and every time you get hit your character jerks, which takes your sight off the enemy you spent the last few minutes trying to locate, and the enemies are fast enough that they can likely get another shot before you fully recover, causing you to jerk again. Finally, just for future playthroughs, the position of the snipers is randomly selected. It's an OK level once you get a hang of it, but it is beyond challenging until you get a hang of it.
There was also Allied Assault's Sniper Town level. The game up until that point was actually rather easy. There were some challenging points, but nothing that left you absolutely lost on how to beat it. Sniper town, though...Oh, boy, was that thing a nightmare the first few times. Try having well-hidden enemies with near-perfect accuracy that on Normal take out 1/10 of your health with each shot (about 1/5 on Hard I believe). Oh, and every time you get hit your character jerks, which takes your sight off the enemy you spent the last few minutes trying to locate, and the enemies are fast enough that they can likely get another shot before you fully recover, causing you to jerk again. Finally, just for future playthroughs, the position of the snipers is randomly selected. It's an OK level once you get a hang of it, but it is beyond challenging until you get a hang of it.
I would say it's Demon's Souls but there's no spike in that game, it's uniformly painful in the ass until it's not because you learn to not cut any corners with the combat.
Anyway, difficulty spike, difficulty spike, difficulty spike... there were a lot of SNES games back in the day that were downright impossible to play past a certain point. Anybody play Mickey's Magical Quest? Remember the bit where you fight some sort of red demon after you get your wizard powers and ride a spiked elevator down to hell? He was unbeatable for years. You couldn't jump on him as usual to inflict any damage because he wore a spiked helmet, so the usual strategy was borked and instead you had to charge up your magic before firing at him. But holding down to charge attacks was nigh impossible because the demon had this constant barrage of attacks going on...
And while on the SNES thing, there's that level in The Lion King where Simba goes into exile. I never figured how to get past the rolling boulders.
Anyway, difficulty spike, difficulty spike, difficulty spike... there were a lot of SNES games back in the day that were downright impossible to play past a certain point. Anybody play Mickey's Magical Quest? Remember the bit where you fight some sort of red demon after you get your wizard powers and ride a spiked elevator down to hell? He was unbeatable for years. You couldn't jump on him as usual to inflict any damage because he wore a spiked helmet, so the usual strategy was borked and instead you had to charge up your magic before firing at him. But holding down to charge attacks was nigh impossible because the demon had this constant barrage of attacks going on...
And while on the SNES thing, there's that level in The Lion King where Simba goes into exile. I never figured how to get past the rolling boulders.
Psychonauts's Meat Circus is a good one.
Hope you got a hang of that platforming, cause the safety net's on fire, the water is rising, and you can't swim.
Hope you got a hang of that platforming, cause the safety net's on fire, the water is rising, and you can't swim.
I don't think the style of combat was necessarily too difficult, but enemy health bars really become a time sink after a while. I had it on easy mode within half an hour of the bigger monsters being introduced.Gorfias said:
Two I can think of...
Jagged Alliance 2 goes from an enjoyable, tactically juicy romp to a white knuckle march of horror that even aggressive save scumming can be hard pressed to overcome. It makes complaints about the new, forgiving XCOM games seem quaint and bemusing.
Fantasy General is a game I revisit once every few years, certain that advancing age and a more tactically proficient mind will now be sufficient to overcome its challenges. And the difficulty spike comes late enough that I'm always temporarily fooled into believing than this is indeed the case. And then I get to roughly the same part and it's all "Oh yes, now I remember". And then the AI ruthlessly buggers me into submission and the game gets shelved for another few years.
Jagged Alliance 2 goes from an enjoyable, tactically juicy romp to a white knuckle march of horror that even aggressive save scumming can be hard pressed to overcome. It makes complaints about the new, forgiving XCOM games seem quaint and bemusing.
Fantasy General is a game I revisit once every few years, certain that advancing age and a more tactically proficient mind will now be sufficient to overcome its challenges. And the difficulty spike comes late enough that I'm always temporarily fooled into believing than this is indeed the case. And then I get to roughly the same part and it's all "Oh yes, now I remember". And then the AI ruthlessly buggers me into submission and the game gets shelved for another few years.
Anyone remember the Futurama game?
For whatever reason the second level is one of the hardest in the game. It doesn't help that it comes right after the calming, more exploration based first level.
For whatever reason the second level is one of the hardest in the game. It doesn't help that it comes right after the calming, more exploration based first level.
Tales of Vesperia, Gattuso boss (basically a gaint wolf). He is one of the first few bosses (about...5 hours into the game?), and he is largely considered to be the most difficult boss in the game. I would put him on line with some of the optional bosses that are typical in RPGs.
Im pretty sure he is the third boss in the game in fact. He can two shot party members, and spawns pretty difficult mobs.
Cerberus from Devil May Cry 3....and actually from Kingdom Hearts 1 as well. In both of those cases he is the second boss (possibly third depending on what path you take in KH)
Im pretty sure he is the third boss in the game in fact. He can two shot party members, and spawns pretty difficult mobs.
Cerberus from Devil May Cry 3....and actually from Kingdom Hearts 1 as well. In both of those cases he is the second boss (possibly third depending on what path you take in KH)
"forgiving"? The RNG in the new game is such a fucking *****, I shouldn't ever be missing 90%+ shots, especially when I save it the turn before and try it 25+ times with multiple people.BloatedGuppy said:
OT: I don't play games on high difficulties usually, so I don't often meet a RIDICULOUS challenge to overcome, but I did play spec ops: the line on hard mode recently, and the last mission definitely jumped in difficulty.
it is where you don't have lugo anymore and are storming uphill zig zagging across the road from cover to cover with having 2 machine gun turrets firing on you at all times. Also having tons of goons firing at you too jumping over the damn walls. This level is very frustrating because even behind cover it only takes about 3 solid hits for you to die, which can happen in the matter of time from you leaning out of cover to shoot and getting maybe one shot off, so taking out those machine guns and picking the right paths to sprint to was a bit tricky, and if you were lucky enough to have the grenade launcher attachment on your rifle, it took some pretty damn good skill to line up the shot just right to arc into the bunker and hopefully take out the turret user. Of course that was usually futile as another guy would spawn and take his place on the gun before you could bumrush that bunker.
I just saved some friends from a bus sort of cage in a cave. Went outside and all heck is breaking loose. Otherwise, very fun game so far, and very good looking on an HD 7970.Brownie80 said:
I have cheats on, so, I'm invulnerable and have top of the lines weapons. But, I'm supposed to shrink, make note of an invisible bridge, leave a time bomb on a pressure switch, run across the invisible bridge in time to shoot a clock before it disappears... no saves or anything. Dang!!!Mikejames said:
EDIT: Aaaand Batman Arkham City: I'm supposed to throw a guided batarang that steers like like a squid driving a formula 1, put it through a hold, in a fence so it passes by an electrical charge, then fly it up stairs, u turn back down stairs, put it up a hall, through a window and hit a switch. Yeah. That's fun.
Final Fantasy Tactics. I played the PSP port, but damn, did those introductory missions get hard fast. I spent a good week trying to beat that last mission, only to have the game go " aaaaand now the game is actually starting."
Also there's some straight-up unfair missions, where if you didn't farm the correct skills earlier, you were screwed.
Also there's some straight-up unfair missions, where if you didn't farm the correct skills earlier, you were screwed.
Really? well that makes me feel like a badass I finished that game on hardest difficulty and plated it without much trouble at all guess it must have just clicked with me. The original Alice game had me tearing my hair out with its inconsistent controls and hit detection then I realised I could save the game anywhere and managed to scrape through but I must admit I think I left it to late to enjoy the gameplay in that one.Gorfias said:
OT: hardest difficulty spike well theres always bosses in Fighters usually SNK ones where the difficulty skyrockets, I also remember some stupid table boss in Persona 3 that I really had a hard time with and after that the game eased off same with Ninja Gaiden and the first Alma fight damn that was hard and after that the game gets considerably easier.
For my answer though I am going to go with the hoverbike level in Battletoads that was frikkin insane I could finish the first two levels with ease barely a scratch and then comes the hoverbikes which I only ever finished once and by that point I had so few lives I died pretty soon afterwards anyway it essentially proved to be a brick wall for me.
There was also an old C64 game with the light gun and the first level was you had to shoot a criminal holding a hostage who was tiny and moved rapidly about the screen you could only see his head and your bullet blast was bigger than his head so you had to aim slightly off to his left or you would kill the hostage and it would be game over. I only ever completed the first stage once and then finished the game without breaking a sweat but that first level was literally insane it cant have ever been play tested I have never seen a game like it since its like putting the last boss first.
So far I'd say it's a toss up between 2 games, but for different reasons.
Dark Souls, both for that first boss fight, which took me a little while to spot the door off to the left, resulting in me trying everything from fighting it to trying to get it to collapse the building on itself by smashing the pillars...and then I saw the door and felt like an idiot, then the fight against Pikachu and Snorlax which...I somehow managed to beat without summons.
The second is Banished. The game starts our seeming to be pretty simple, but you quickly run out of spare bodies to do all the work that needs to be done to keep the village fed, clothed, and warm, and once something starts to go wrong, there's rarely a good way to stop it.
Dark Souls, both for that first boss fight, which took me a little while to spot the door off to the left, resulting in me trying everything from fighting it to trying to get it to collapse the building on itself by smashing the pillars...and then I saw the door and felt like an idiot, then the fight against Pikachu and Snorlax which...I somehow managed to beat without summons.
The second is Banished. The game starts our seeming to be pretty simple, but you quickly run out of spare bodies to do all the work that needs to be done to keep the village fed, clothed, and warm, and once something starts to go wrong, there's rarely a good way to stop it.
I was going through typical WoW raid progression on LFR, having a grand ol' time as a tank, and then I started Siege of Orgrimmar. It... wasn't too easy, even on LFR. General Nazgrim took me several tries and a rage-quit. Nazgrim was bad, but Garrosh was a serious pain in the ass. It was only after being seriously "in the zone" that this rag-tag LFR group finally downed him. It was only LFR, but it felt SO damn good!
Final Fantasy Tactics (Advanced on the GBA, and A2 on the DS). In both cases I found myself very quickly running into a wall when I failed to properly multi-class and level/gear my A team. Quite suddenly I started to depend on luck more than the abilities of my team. I haven't played either in a very long time, but I think I would have to start over, if I want to be more successful.
But the biggest one by far, I think, would be SSX Tricky.
I loved this game, and yet, hated it so very much. Learning all the shortcuts, knowing where to get big air and what tricks to pull off on each and every jump, drop and rail was more fun than I ever thought I would get out of a game like this. But then I started to obsess about getting gold ranks on every game mode in every course, and that's when the hate set in.
Show-off is a mode that is all about getting a high trick score. Show-off relies on virtually flawless execution of every jump and trick in order to get gold. This game made me earn that gold. I mentioned how I learned every course like the back of my hand, and ye gods I was tested. I couldn't just breeze through the courses like I'd been used to, I had to plan when to take shortcuts or not to get the biggest air, and get big trick combos instead of just pulling off uber tricks. From intermediate to professional.
Final Fantasy Tactics (Advanced on the GBA, and A2 on the DS). In both cases I found myself very quickly running into a wall when I failed to properly multi-class and level/gear my A team. Quite suddenly I started to depend on luck more than the abilities of my team. I haven't played either in a very long time, but I think I would have to start over, if I want to be more successful.
But the biggest one by far, I think, would be SSX Tricky.
I loved this game, and yet, hated it so very much. Learning all the shortcuts, knowing where to get big air and what tricks to pull off on each and every jump, drop and rail was more fun than I ever thought I would get out of a game like this. But then I started to obsess about getting gold ranks on every game mode in every course, and that's when the hate set in.
Show-off is a mode that is all about getting a high trick score. Show-off relies on virtually flawless execution of every jump and trick in order to get gold. This game made me earn that gold. I mentioned how I learned every course like the back of my hand, and ye gods I was tested. I couldn't just breeze through the courses like I'd been used to, I had to plan when to take shortcuts or not to get the biggest air, and get big trick combos instead of just pulling off uber tricks. From intermediate to professional.