Biggest Difficulty Spike You Have Ever Experienced

[Do4600]

Something that I doubt I'll ever forget, and it's a little silly, but goddamn Abyss on Ord Ibanna was such a cruel curve. It's one of the fastest races in the game and on the turns the track is half the normal width and if you fall off, you are immediately in 12th place and can't win.

I beat God Hand yesterday, so I switched to Hard difficulty. I'm still trying to beat the first two enemies you encounter.

lol. Yeah that game is ridiculous;y hard, but I don't see it as a curve, it's more of a wall that is just barely tilted.

 

[bemusement]

Driver 3, The Chase. Insanely hard, I haven't finished it to this day. I advise you all not to not play this game.

 

[Thedutchjelle]

Illusion of Gaia (Illusion of Time for EU) on the SNES.

You're happily going along and then Mu happens. Suddenly everything wants you dead.

Also on the SNES: Secret of Mana.
The tiger boss from the witch is the last boss before you get magic, and it can completely wreck you if you didn't grind some extra levels out.

Either that fucking wizard in DQVI who's in the most fucking annoying dungeon ever that still manages to be too short to have any sense of accomplishment form beating it.

Or any of the bosses in DE:HR. I was playing non-violence and stealth. I had no real weapons or combat abilities. Fuck those guys.

Oh yeah, I forgot about those bosses. They were really frustrating - For the first one I used all the bombs that I got from the special edition, the second one I think I glitched the boss and the third one I abused the slits in the walls to shoot at him when his AI was searching a new route to me. So un-deus ex. Rest of the game was stellar though.

 

[CannibalCorpses]

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.

Lol...it was hard on easy? I thought i was bashing my head against a brick wall on some sections because i hadn't played on easy to get all the upgrades before attempting the hard run. The game has gone up some more in my estimation

 

[elilupe]

This may be because I first played it as a kid, but the Riku II fight from the first Kingdom Hearts, where you lose the help of Donald and Goofy and have to fight possessed Riku in that little arena, was a crazy difficulty spike for me.

what is especially frustrating about that part is, if you "die", you have to watch that damn cutscene all over again, bloody annoying as hell and breaks your combat momentum.

Exactly! By the time I beat him I had that cutscene pretty well memorized.

 

[gorfias]

Lol...it [Alice: Madness Returns] was hard on easy? I thought i was bashing my head against a brick wall on some sections because i hadn't played on easy to get all the upgrades before attempting the hard run. The game has gone up some more in my estimation

So, did you beat it? Did you use Keyboard and Mouse or Controller?

As noted in other posts: some games are just hard. This is more about a spike in difficulty.

I'm pretty lousy at this stuff, much as I love it. Another one that spiked for me: Crysis 3. I'm walking around taking out bad guys, picking up big weapons and blowing up stuff. Now I'm in some jungle, surrounded by snipers who, if I somehow kill them all, I still have to contend with turrets that pop out of the ground and appear indestructible. Man I need cheats!

 

[ayylamao]

Off the top of my head I can think of Olympus Heights in Bioshock 1, I recall everything just going bullet-spongey from there, and I ran into some literally impossible hacks (as in, the end is blocked by 2 overloads).

 

[barbzilla]

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.

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!

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.

Same here, with the infinite teleport dodge thing, the combat was easy enough, but dear god did it drag on sometimes. I suppose if you were more offensively minded, there may be some difficulty issues. The game was still beautiful and brilliant though, and it came with the complete first game (which was an amazing gem of a game if you aren't too worried about graphics).

As for my personal difficulty spike issue... Super Contra! The last two levels sucked so much that I ended up wrecking my controller (only time that has ever happened, and it wasn't from being tossed, I was just so pissed that I torked the plastic with my hands).

 

[barbzilla]

Afro Samurai. Specifically, the Kuma boss fight.

Every boss had a trick or two you needed to learn to beat it. Kuma had a couple. First, he blocked/dodged all attacks most of the time unless he was in the middle of an animation. He had a pretty strong moveset that his AI would often abuse for cheap hits; you could avoid the cheapest using a focus backflip, a maneuver you literally never ever had any need for anywhere else. But the worst part was that you couldn't use the same move combo more than once, or he'd start blocking/dodging the latter hits or autocountering you in the middle of your attacks. Use the same set of moves even twice in a row, and not only would he take no damage but he'd probably autocounter you for massive damage. Fortunately there were hundreds of combos to choose from and you could reuse the same one a few times... but there wasn't a lot of difference between any of the combos, so there was no real reason to not spam the same attacks over and over in any other fight.

It took me literally three days to recognize that this was why he was so hard to beat. It's not immediately obvious, because he goes through multiple "forms" over the course of the fight and he takes a long time to kill. I thought he just really liked blocking attacks near the end of the fight.

Also, another fight I had trouble with was the first Metal Gear Rising boss, since it expects you to know how to parry (the only method of blocking in the game). I wasn't used to the Japanese convention of special attacks and maneuvers being performed through a combination of thumbstick input and button presses (you see this in fighting games like the classic QCF input for Ryu's fireball), and MGR never made how to parry clear. In MGR, you had to be standing still, and then press forward and attack simultaneously during an enemies attack animation to execute a parry. You couldn't parry if an enemy wasn't attacking you, and couldn't parry if the thumbstick wasn't in a neutral position to start (e.g. you were moving). With expert timing you'd do a more powerful version that stuns the enemy and automatically counterattacked, and this became a potent skill throughout the game. But since there's no other method of blocking attacks, and the boss has attacks that effectively long on to you, you needed to at least know how to parry quite well by the first boss.

Last one: The first Dark Souls boss

I challenged my cousin to beat it and it took her 7 hours over two days. Nuff said.

By first Dark Souls boss, do you mean the one in the Asylum, or the two Gargoyles on the bell tower?

I feel your pain with parrying in MGR, I have pretty bad ADHD and it affects my reflexes to the point that I tend to be more predictive than reactive, and I have always had trouble with parry systems or counter systems. To top that off, I'll add in the fight with the jacked up Samurai on the Train that is unbeatable (literally), only I didn't know that and I am a serial save scrubber. I typically would just load a save when I was doing too poorly in an attempt to get better, well it took me the better part of 30 minutes before I realized that I was supposed to lose.

 

[GodzillaGuy92]

Dark Souls is the example that comes to mind. Not through any fault of its own, actually; I wasn't paying adequate attention to my surroundings and headed straight to the cemetery. Cue several dozen failed attempts to fight my way through the skeletons. Dark Souls's reputation being what it is, I just assumed the difficulty curve was genuinely that steep after the Undead Asylum and kept at it until I became adept at beating the skeletons with an underleveled character and very unsuitable weapons - only after which point I noticed the actual path up to the Undead Parish. Bell Gargoyles and Stray Demon aside, though, the rest of the game was a cakewalk compared to learning combat from enemies specifically designed to communicate to new players to come back later. God bless Dark Souls for allowing me the freedom to have that experience.

 

[Zaydin]

Oh, I forgot a rather drastic spike! Azetlor the Collector, the boss of the Public Library in Ghostbusters the Video Game, especially on Professional (Meaning Hard)difficulty. On normal, he's a challenge, but not too bad. On Professional, though? The guy is a nightmare; he moves fast despite his size and hits hard, has some of the most health out of any boss in the game, and he can spawn book bat minions to harrass you. I died to him more times than I did the final boss on Professional!

 

[ghostrider9876]

Little King's Story. What was a rather clever and somewhat challenging Pikmin-like game suddenly introduces a boss that's a pinball machine, meaning you have to bang him against the targets repeatedly to take off his health bar, then hit him juuuuuuuust right and hope you're lucky enough to have him crash into the dead center of the very top of the machine--twice--to beat him. Oh, and your 'flippers' are your soldiers, who take damage every time the ball/boss hits them. And if he falls to the bottom, he lands in a pile of food and starts eating, undoing a large chunk of any progress you've made hitting him into targets.

I actually beat that, though, and then I found the boss that's at the top of a long obstacle course up a mountain. And no matter how much you've upgraded your units, you can never upgrade your King's health--meaning three hits from anything on the obstacle course and you're dead. That's where I gave up because I was having zero fun.

Basically the boss fights after the first few were massive difficulty spikes from the rest of the game. I actually never used the word "f**k" until I was trying to beat that game. True story.

For a different example, going back and trying to beat StarTropics without using any codes. I remembered that game being so easy when I was a kid...then I remembered I had used a Game Genie. My god, trying to beat that without cheating was insane. I did it though!

 

[McMullen]

They are more or less constant in Skyrim. On the way to High Hrothgar via the White River, I did pretty well at stealthily taking out the bandits on the bridge with the towers. Stopped by Fort Amol a little later, and things got weird; I one-hit kill one of the mages with my first shot, then another comes running out the gate. He doesn't know where I am but still dodges the first arrow I fire at him, barely notices getting hit by the second, spots me, and fires a single ice spike that insta-kills me. I had 150 health... wish my ice spikes could do 150 damage. When I retried it, the same mage died in one shot.

There are too many more examples to count in this game. I think the game decides every now and then that you've lived too long and arbitrarily raises the level of the enemies to several times yours, even when you try to take the ceaseless training of the draugr into account.

 

[greatcheezer2021]

big difficulty spike, the one real significant one i can really think of is Diablo 2, act 2 boss Duriel.

i was playing single player, on /players 6. meaning i was playing on 6x difficulty. of course this was normal mode, because i had first started. think of 6x as Goku training in 60-100x times gravity. all enemies have 6x health and damage, have a much greater chance of dropping items/good/great items, and give 6x more experience as long as you manage not to die. anyway, i clear all the false tombs, get some valuables and lesser items i feel will prepare me for the long fight ahead i have fought countless times before.

i was not prepared for this fight. a lvl 25 barbarian trying to go toe-to-toe with duriel on 6x does not happen, unless you have 6 hirelings and 6 party members backing you up online. but online is for godless jackals who enjoy playing bots and lag. i ended up fighting him on 2x and defeating him later. only, my barbarian is not optimized for the 6x life. my current paladin fares much better on 6x nightmare Act IV.


tho i never reached hell difficulty on single player, my friend did on 1x. i watched his sorceress die countless times to unique boss carvers, with immunities and abilities i'd never imagined.

 

[nevarran]

Ninja Gaiden 3(I think), the levels were a walk in the park, the bosses were very difficult. The contrast was mind blowing.

 

[Laughing Man]

Right here and right now it has to be Borderlands 2. Specifically the jump from True Vault Hunter mode to Ultimate Vault Hunter mode. The enemies seem to scale directly compared to your level, e.g I skipped a level 55 mission at the start of the new play through and came back to it at level 61 expecting it to be a bit easier because the enemies would still be around level 55 or so, nope they had scaled so ended up being level 60 - 62.

To give even more context the difficulty curve also ramps considerably depending on the shield you use I use The Alkaline Bee so I get a dmg bonus against enemies as long as the shield is fully charged. This makes the enemies just about manageable but the second you lose that shield the enemies become massive bullet sponges. You then take in to account that my weapon of choice The Corrosive Sandhawk (it fires a spread of around ten bullets per shot that come out and then fly to towards the enemy like a bird) devastating in burst fire mode if everything hits but the bullet travel delay means that enemies can dodge combined with the fact that the enemies, once at range, rarely miss, know exactly were you are even behind cover and they only need five or six direct hits (one burst fire) to put you on your ass.

The issue is that you need a combination of factors to put even basic enemies down.

A combo attack, slag + another weapon.
A weapon that combines multiple hits in a single shot i.e: a weapon that fires several rounds per trigger shot, or a weapon that has a secondary attack like the Torque weapons which impact and then explode giving two hits per round
Stacked addons or skills, i.e skills and equipment that give significant added weapon effects. In my case The Bee for bonus amp damage and Determined Tactician Relic which gives bonuses to my character skill tree specifically weapon / gun damage. Shield valve and recharge rate and a reduced action skill recharge.

Even with all this and a pair of attack turrets with shields and slag addon effect some of the bad guys are still a challenge.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

Homeworld 2

- The mission where you find the movers for the first time. Oh look a new ship type, oh it's a only a corvette, frigates advance!...Frigate destroyed! well shit that didn't work, ok fight fire with fire, go corvettes! corvette squadron destroyed...balls! Mothership under attack...uh oh.

- Balcora gate, so protect the power supply form the Vagar trying to blow it up, no problem...after the last mission I've got a full fleet and two very shiny Battlecruisers itching for some action. lets see send a probe here to keep an eye on the objective and send some scouts over here to see what's waiting ahead...6 Vagar Battlecruisers and 8 destroyers, oh...this isn't going to end well...incoming strike craft, Mothership is under attack...i hate you game! why you so unfair!

I know the game is set up so that it looks at your fleet at the end of the previous mission and then deploys a bigger fleet that's balanced so that it's a good counter to yours on the next mission but seriously 6 Battlecruisers is way unfair, and theirs a time limit too!

 

[Blitsie]

I beat God Hand yesterday, so I switched to Hard difficulty. I'm still trying to beat the first two enemies you encounter.

Oh lawd those enemies that turn into demons the moment you defeat them are the worst, you can be completely owning everything in sight with your eyes closed only to have one pop out and completely curbstomp you without even trying.

Unreal Tournament (both 2k4 and 3) always had one hell of a difficulty spike during the last campaign match now that I remember, its basically a 1 vs 1 match but to actually make it special or whatever the developers decided to boost the bot's damage and accuracy through the roof, resulting in a fight where you can nearly get one shot killed the moment you get spotted. This is especially jarring since straight up until then - if you were on a difficulty level that matched your skill - the bots never gave you any trouble at all.

 

[sageoftruth]

I beat God Hand yesterday, so I switched to Hard difficulty. I'm still trying to beat the first two enemies you encounter.

Oh lawd those enemies that turn into demons the moment you defeat them are the worst, you can be completely owning everything in sight with your eyes closed only to have one pop out and completely curbstomp you without even trying.

Unreal Tournament (both 2k4 and 3) always had one hell of a difficulty spike during the last campaign match now that I remember, its basically a 1 vs 1 match but to actually make it special or whatever the developers decided to boost the bot's damage and accuracy through the roof, resulting in a fight where you can nearly get one shot killed the moment you get spotted. This is especially jarring since straight up until then - if you were on a difficulty level that matched your skill - the bots never gave you any trouble at all.

The demons are actually pretty fun once you learn how to handle them. The trick is to not chase them. Let them come to you. They seem to always pause long enough for you to land the first blow whenever they flash step right up in front of you, and their long range attacks are easy to dodge. Also, that cool counter attack you use when they teleport behind you is much easier to do when you're simply waiting from them to make the first move.

The spiky ones can still be a pain, though since you can't duck their close range attack. I often resort to the god hand/ roulette wheel when dealing with them.

 

[sageoftruth]

big difficulty spike, the one real significant one i can really think of is Diablo 2, act 2 boss Duriel.

i was playing single player, on /players 6. meaning i was playing on 6x difficulty. of course this was normal mode, because i had first started. think of 6x as Goku training in 60-100x times gravity. all enemies have 6x health and damage, have a much greater chance of dropping items/good/great items, and give 6x more experience as long as you manage not to die. anyway, i clear all the false tombs, get some valuables and lesser items i feel will prepare me for the long fight ahead i have fought countless times before.

i was not prepared for this fight. a lvl 25 barbarian trying to go toe-to-toe with duriel on 6x does not happen, unless you have 6 hirelings and 6 party members backing you up online. but online is for godless jackals who enjoy playing bots and lag. i ended up fighting him on 2x and defeating him later. only, my barbarian is not optimized for the 6x life. my current paladin fares much better on 6x nightmare Act IV.


tho i never reached hell difficulty on single player, my friend did on 1x. i watched his sorceress die countless times to unique boss carvers, with immunities and abilities i'd never imagined.

It's a good thing you weren't using a less tank-able class like Amazon or Sorceress. Unless you have an immunity to freezing, he makes mincemeat out of all long-range character builds.