Biggest Difficulty Spike You Have Ever Experienced

[Sniper Team 4]

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.

Ooooh, I remember that game. There were a few parts where it seemed to jump--mainly when you ended up having to fight one of the Stone carriers. And Weingraf by yourself. Grr...

I'd say the biggest difficulty spike I've encountered in a recent game would be going up to Classic difficulty from Normal in XCOM: Enemy Unknown/Enemy Within. Bit of a jump to go up to Classic and have Thin men one shotting my soldiers.

Surprisingly, I did not have that much of a harder time going up to Classic. It was harder, but not too hard. Then I did the next one (Impossible, was that it?) and that was a kick in the face. I gave up as soon as the first distress call came out, because even though my team scraped through it by the skin of their teeth, all the other countries that I didn't go help immediately went to full panic mode. That's just downright unfair in my opinion.

Anyway, the most recent one I ran into was in Final Fantasy XIII. Cruised through the majority of that game until I got to the boss at the end of Fang and Vanille's village. Barth-something. Holy fish sticks, he beat me to a pulp. I could not get past him, so I ended up going back and doing every single hunt possible in the game up to that point. Came back and kicked his teeth in, but man...if you just play the game normally, going along without going out of your way to level, that fight is a terrible wake up call.

 

[SmallHatLogan]

Anyone played Earthworm Jim 2? That God damned Zaxxon level is the reason why I never completed that game. It seriously feels like an absolute dick move by the developers.

SMT:Nocturne, Metador boss. Up until then the game is on tutorial, after that brace yourself because you just entered the gates of hell.

The thing about the Matador is if you've played an SMT game before it's easy to know what skills you need to beat him. The problem I had was finding demons with those skills. I generally avoid guides the first time I play a game but I relented just to find a fucking demon that could boost my accuracy because I spent hours running around persuading demons (failing more often than not) and fusing them and coming up with nothing. What a pain in the arse.

 

[Raggedstar]

The Lion King (Genesis, SNES, DOS) is THE most evil second level I can think of. The first level is your typical side scrolling platformer and is a very good first level for learning the mechanics you'll use for the rest of the game. The second level is "Just Can't Wait To Be King" and for a level with NO enemies, it's perhaps the harshest difficulty spike I've seen. Your timing needs to be PERFECT for so much of the level, and while there are no enemies, all your deaths will come from one hit deaths in environment hazards (falling into the water and failing the ostrich ride). It's such a different level from the others because it uses puzzle elements you never ever get to use in the game. I think it's the ostrich that gets a lot of people since it relies so much on memorization and timing (especially for the double jump. It's signalled by two up arrows, but mashing it twice in any old way won't work. It requires a bit of instinct to pull it off). Oh this game wrecked me as a kid.

As for the memorization, let's see if I can dig it up from the deepest nooks of my brain after YEARS of playing that stage, without looking up a walkthrough.

1st trip - Up - down - up - double up - down

2nd trip - Up - down - up -up - down - double up - down - down - up - double up

*twitch*

 

[Cerebrawl]

The Witcher 2. First fight after the tutorial/prologue.

 

[zelda2fanboy]

Every SNES Star Wars game. It's all over the damn place. You practically have to play the whole thing with codes to get anywhere. Also, Jak and Daxter into Jak 2. Let's add guns and cars that handle like crap, while removing any checkpoints.

 

[Blaster395]

The Khezu in MHF2/MHFU. Let me explain.

All previous opponents you have to fight are reasonable challenges. They can kill you if you make 2 severe mistakes in a row, but otherwise, you have enough healing potions to recover between mistakes, so they are quite manageable. Everything is going well, but then you meet this ugly fucker.

Now, at first, he doesn't seem too bad. His attacks are slow, inaccurate and lumbering. However...

1. He has a roar that stuns you, and at this point in the game, there is no decent counter to this avaliable the first time you need to beat him. He can stun you for enough time to get a free hit on you.
2. He can paralyse you with many of his attacks, giving him a free second hit on you.
3. When raging, he becomes fast enough to hit you a second time before you recover.
4. When raging, his damage is so high that basically any armour you will have available without grinding armour spheres, you will die within 2 hits.
5. After he has taken about 50% damage, he will basically be permanently enraged for the rest of the fight unless you stop attacking him.
6. Flash bombs and sonic bombs will do nothing. There are no 'cheap' tactics available for killing him.

To summarize: A Khezu will kill you for a single mistake.

Khezu is a brick wall that happens way before a player can develop enough skills to handle his attacks, and at a point in the game where you don't have access to drops you can grind to produce an equipment-based counter to him.

 

[DEAD34345]

Dark Souls has just this second pissed me off with a difficulty spike, causing me to quit the game and check out The Escapist. I got to Blighttown, and was happily plodding along killing weird looking mosquitoes and giant guys with clubs, when suddenly I notice I'm being shot at by a bunch of zombies with blowdarts, and despite blocking the darts I've been poisoned.

"No worries!" I think, "The game just gave me a giant stockpile of poison curing moss a couple of areas ago."

"Nope!" Interrupts Dark Souls "This isn't poison, this is toxin, which is obviously completely different."

Me: "..."

Dark Souls: "By the way, you're dead."

Me: "..."

 

[The Squid King]

The first time I played Katamari Forever, it was pretty easy until one level set in some house around the middle of the game which was just plain hard. The levels after this one were actually much easier. This level rivaled the last ones in difficulty.

 

[SilverLion]

Labyrinth Zone, Oh GOD Labyrinth Zone. I have yet to get through that level without wasting at least one continue. And I have STILL got to beat the boss (or outrun it, whatever term you like to use)
The horror, the horror...

 

[Elvis Starburst]

The final fucking boss of fucking Metal Gear fucking RISING! Everything in that game had a good scale of difficulty, until THIS bastard suddenly hits you like a freight train at 100MPH, and just... ARGH! Didn't help I had no healing items by the time I got to him. That one chapter along took me 45 minutes, said the game when I finally won. Jesus >.>

 

[TristanBelmont]

A Link Between Worlds is a great game but by no means is it difficult. Even Hero Mode, the game's harder second playthrough option a la Master Quest, merely ups the health of every enemy and doubles (I think) the damage they all do to you, so conquering this second adventure just means paying more attention to enemy movements.

UNTIL

You get to Hero Mode Lorule and touch an enemy. Then your skin tears like paper. After that your muscly meaty bits get charred like steak on a grill. Your bones are powderized. Your organs are shredded and put on the salad of an unassuming restauranteur. Then you remember that you haven't saved in ages and that you're really about to be in for it. This version of Lorule is insane but at the very least it makes me wanna not get touched less.

 

[rednose1]

Spoiler: This crap right here:

This crap right here:

I don't think I need to elaborate any further on the subject.

I was going to post this exact fight! The whole game, I'm building up a complete cast of badass players, so Ramza started filling in a support role. Next thing I know, chemist Ramza is going up against Weigraf; fun city.
Only later did I learn about the Yell/accumulate tactic. Made the fight a huge joke. I was rather disappointed.

 

[willard3]

Spoiler: This crap right here:

This crap right here:

I don't think I need to elaborate any further on the subject.

Mother.

FUCKER.

I'm SO mad at this right now, haha.

 

[ZZoMBiE13]

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.

I had that Futurama game. It was brutal in some places. Not because it was particularly difficult, but because it felt like the platforming had been programmed by monkeys instead of gameplay designers. Maybe it was Gunter? I dunno.

 

[Iwata]

Valkyria Chronicles.

The desert.

So you're enjoying the story, confident in the fact that you're still fairly early on, and then out of nowhere, your squad literally bumps into Emperor Maximilian in the middle of the damn desert! And he brought along his Giant Tank of Doom!

The game decided to bring the end boss into the middle of the story, and then afterwards, resume as if nothing had happened!

 

[Tassit]

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.

Huh.. I played the hell out of Tales of Vesperia, I had to Google what Gattuso looked like and it still doesn't ring any bells. I may have to replay the game now to see if that jogs any memories.

Also.. For wtf difficulty spikes, I'd have to say Lost Planet 2. If anyone's played it, the giant artillary tank level just drove me absolutely batty. I'm not sure if that level, or the game as a whole, was designed to be played by more than one person but scrambling across a tank getting bombarded by enemies. To get a shell, to go all the way back to load it, to get your cannon into position.. Only to have to boss dive under the ground and appear behind you and blast you into oblivion. Repeat for 3 hours lol

As a whole I didn't enjoy the game, this level I remember with clarity however.

 

[CaptainMidlands]

Ninja Gaiden black, the game was so easy pressing A to start the game and pressing nothing to watch the AMV and then it started and I moved forward and died from 17 ninja's

 

[Seracen]

Old PS2 game called "Chaos Legion." It was reasonably challenging until just before the 50% mark. Then suddenly it spiked like a mofo.

Had to go back and replay previous missions in order to level up my character, then continue on with the game. I just have no time to level grind like that anymore.

As much as I enjoy RPG's, I am a casual now, when it comes to JRPG's.

 

[WouldYouKindly]

The fucking bell gargoyles. Up till then, it's fairly straight forward. Playing cautiously, you can navigate the hollow soldiers pretty easy. Even the Balder hollows aren't so bad. The Taurus demon is like a slightly less lumbering Asylum demon that you can repeat the dropping attack on. The Bell Gargoyles are tough. The Bell Gargoyle can be hard. His fucking buddy just amps up the difficulty. Without phantoms it can be difficult for a player who knows what they are doing. They are they only boss early game that still manages to kill me on a new character with some regularity.

 

[StriderShinryu]

The one that immediately comes to mind for me is 7th Saga for the SNES. Maybe I was doing something wrong, but that always seemed like "Difficulty Spike: The Game" to me. Every time you completed an area you would try to move to the next one, but would near instantly die to the first flies or slimes you ran into because they were pretty much individually tougher than even the boss you had to beat to complete the previous area. It became a pattern of beating the area's boss and then going back to a little earlier in the area to spend hours grinding just so you could survive against the next zone's cannon fodder.