Difficulty spikes!

[BlindMessiah94]

I'm probably behind a few years on this one, but the last boss in Gears of War. I just played the series for the first time (have to say, it was enjoyable, but I beat it in under 6 hours and it was not all that fun on multiplayer either - not as big as all the hype would have had me think).

Anyway, the last boss was ridiculous. He has some weird one hit insta kill crap if you strayed out of the light and then because of the clunky movement/running controls, you might wind up accidentally running into cover in an unlit area and dying. Not to mention if you didn't save yourself the Torque Bow or had no grenades it was damn near impossible. After breezing through the game I must have died 25 times before I looked at a strategy guide where I had to exploit a glitch to win.

Bad way to end an otherwise okay gaming experience.

Raam is a pretty notorious boss fight, you should try him on insane, it's... well, insane!

The cover was kinda glitchy in the battle and the insta death was actually his swarm of Kryll. The best way to beat him is to reload the level, you'll find torque bows and sniper rifles in the train car which are both great for beating him. Also... having a buddy instead of dumbass Dom helps...

Oh, I didn't know that lol. Anyway I killed him by making him walk into a crate I was covered behind and he just got stuck there, then I lobbed grenades, fired headshots, repeat. He died in 3 grenade tosses. But still it was lame, there was no real way to fight him and I must have died 8 times just trying to get to the turret gun and then realizing it won't let you fire it and that it is in an unlit area.

 

[Tattaglia]

The last level in half-life 2 episode 2 was hell compared to the rest of the game.

This, a thousand times this. I remember constantly dying on my first few runs, leaving the game for a good week or so, then coming back to it and finishing it on the first try. But I must say, that last successful try was the most frustrating thing ever. I sat through the last part of the game with gritted teeth, it was that bad.

 

[ultrachicken]

The part in Uncharted 2 with the tank on hard mode. Or any of the stealth sections.

 

[CrashBang]

I firmly agree with Dead Space's meteor section, that was rock solid compared to the rest of the game
I also found DA:O do have difficulty spikes all over the place. In fact everyone knows this, it's not a surprise. Towards the end, as my patience ran thin, I found myself caving and resorting to casual mode for some fights, I'm not ashamed to admit that

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Demon's Souls after the supposed-to-lose fight against the Vanguard (or as Yahtzee called it, the "turd monster"), you get some easy goons and levels that only have a few dickmoves and asshole enemies. Then you get to the Flamelurker at the end of stage 2-2. The fun kicks off then. At first he is tough, but manageable. He hits hard, but at elast you have some time to heal. Then you get him down to the last 3rd of health and he goes into rage mode. Now he is on your ass the whole time giving you almost no time to breath. He spams AOE attacks that do damage through your guard and take away a lot of stamina per hit. The 2-3 boss after him is a pushover and all other bosses are fairly easy (save for the ManEaters that are only hard because they love to knock you off the ledge and the False King who is like a harder hitting Flamelurker with a very large AOE attack (but much later in the game).

I'll second Flamelurker.

I don't think Demon's Souls is legitimately hard. I think it's incredibly cheap, and it teaches you to play it cheap.

 

[PatrickXD]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky, at the end. The game is pretty easy up until that point after you learn the get in cover and leeeaaaannn HEADSHOT! then at the end, you're just surrounded by enemies. I did that by spamming medkits repeatedly and running from everything, it was seriously ridiculous. Ontop of everything it was at night and they're all wearing fucking crazy ninja suits that you can't see...

 

[blankedboy]

That Metro bit on hard... until I figured out I could actually kill the spawners... yeah I'm that thick.

Also Prototypes random spikes... I overcame that by snapping the disc in two.

But seriously Prototype was needlessly difficult at points...

Yeah, that's true... but difficulty is a good thing.

HOW COULD YOU SNAP THE DISC OF SUCH A WINGAME IN TWO! WHYYY

 

[The Eupho Guy_v1legacy]

-le snip-

wut?!?!? what about disgaea?!?!

the whole game is one fucking difficulty spike. you need to fucking grind for a couple of hours, then you start playing then it is easy then 4 levels later you need to grind even more...

and don't even get me started about after the game ends. god! why is the level cap lvl 9999?!?!?

i cant even get to level 200 without busting my ass. it took me 100 hours just to get 150!

Disgaea isn't really that bad once you get used to how the game works. Personally, I have found that level grinding doesn't give you as big a return as levelling items through the Item World, as not only are you increasing your character levels (The Item world is a random dungeon of up to 100, with each level being harder than the one before it) but you are also increasing the stats of your weapons, which is where majority of your stat boosts will come from.

Also, if you want to make level grinding easier, try to get some statistician specialists on your items (Disgaea 1 and 3) or earn some felonies for your characters (Disgaea 2 only) as equipping a statistician specialist to any equipped weapons or armor will boost the experience you gain by 1% per level of the Statistician, up to a maximum of 300% (felonies work the same way, but the way you gain them is different) In my latest run of Disgaea 1, my red mage has a level 300 statistician on her staff, and she is at level 215 after 80 hours, with the rest of my characters are around the level 150 mark.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

I also found DA:O do have difficulty spikes all over the place. In fact everyone knows this, it's not a surprise. Towards the end, as my patience ran thin, I found myself caving and resorting to casual mode for some fights, I'm not ashamed to admit that

I think most people who played the game ended up dropping the difficulty at some point!

 

[hermes]

Jetch in Final Fantasy X. I have to go back later a lot more prepared and still had problems with him for a couple weeks.

 

[Aleate]

Alma. Nuff said.

 

[The DSM]

Disgaea Alternate Netherworld Finale against Priere.

Before that the highest you faced was a level 700 Dragon, well When you go Against Priere she has 2 level 1500 Cat Girls and her a level 2000 with better gear and stat growth than you unless you have Divine Majin's.

The only way to win is to throw her on to a platform, chip that Cat girls to death and then pound her to death with Dimensional Slash, oh yeah, run out of SP and dont have a high-level gunner? your screwed, and it takes a long time to kill her, I did about 15K damage a turn. she has 250K. I killed her using a level 400 Lord for gunning to start of the chain damage a level 450 Lahral spamming Dimension Slash and a 600 Divine Majin doing the same thing, whilst geting Lion heart every turn.

And the biggest kick, when you get Priere she loses half her Stats and because shes a monster class her Attack will be lower than any resonably leveled Majin with a sword.

Still Omega heal is quite nice so I just replaced Flonne with her as Priere can take more than 3 hits without dying, and she does have the best Embelm in the game in Legendry form.

Cant wait for Majorine...

 

[Les Awesome]

Fighting your rival in pokemon yellow for the 2nd time

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Alma. Nuff said.

Which part? In the first or second game? I don't remember her being too tough?

 

[Akihiko]

Demon's Souls after the supposed-to-lose fight against the Vanguard (or as Yahtzee called it, the "turd monster"), you get some easy goons and levels that only have a few dickmoves and asshole enemies. Then you get to the Flamelurker at the end of stage 2-2. The fun kicks off then. At first he is tough, but manageable. He hits hard, but at elast you have some time to heal. Then you get him down to the last 3rd of health and he goes into rage mode. Now he is on your ass the whole time giving you almost no time to breath. He spams AOE attacks that do damage through your guard and take away a lot of stamina per hit. The 2-3 boss after him is a pushover and all other bosses are fairly easy (save for the ManEaters that are only hard because they love to knock you off the ledge and the False King who is like a harder hitting Flamelurker with a very large AOE attack (but much later in the game).

I'll second Flamelurker.

I don't think Demon's Souls is legitimately hard. I think it's incredibly cheap, and it teaches you to play it cheap.

I think it's half and half. The majority of the bosses are beatable without cheating permitting you have the right equip, which there proves the problem, if you happen to try a boss before you get the correct equip, you're going to have problems. However I did have some deaths which were just stupid. Like dying because the camera angle swapped when I went out of auto target. Actually, I had a lot of deaths due to auto target failing(Suddenly swapping targets, or just losing the target altogether).

I did Flamelurker pretty early. I moved straight onto World 2 after doing 1-1, because I didn't want to do world 1-2 till I found a long bow so I could just kill the red dragon(In hind sight I should have probably just avoided the dragon and did the Tower Knight anyway, since he was insanely easy). So, I was fairly low level at the time, and was no where near being able to wield that flame shield, think it required 22 strength. I think what made that boss the most annoying for me, was actually getting to the boss, you could easily fall to your death trying to even get to him, due to having to carefully drop down to lower planks until you get to the bottom. I never intended to use cheap tactics on him, I was rolling around doging his attacks, shoving soul arrows at him when I could, but I died 5/6 times due to either rolling into a corner(Autotarget for the lose), or alternatively getting him down to low health and him raging. Finally on my final try, I'd got him down to low health, and was rolling around trying to avoid his attacks, with no opening to attack him, else I'd have died, and I happened to roll near the entrence to the Dragon God, and the boss happened to constantly run into the rubble near there without doing anything, so I ran up to him and kept slashing him. I should have waited till I could have gotten that Purple Flame Shield and used it, however, unfortunately you don't really know that until you've tried beating the boss.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

I don't think Demon's Souls is legitimately hard. I think it's incredibly cheap, and it teaches you to play it cheap.

I think it's half and half. The majority of the bosses are beatable without cheating permitting you have the right equip, which there proves the problem, if you happen to try a boss before you get the correct equip, you're going to have problems. However I did have some deaths which were just stupid. Like dying because the camera angle swapped when I went out of auto target. Actually, I had a lot of deaths due to auto target failing(Suddenly swapping targets, or just losing the target altogether).

I did Flamelurker pretty early. I moved straight onto World 2 after doing 1-1, because I didn't want to do world 1-2 till I found a long bow so I could just kill the red dragon(In hind sight I should have probably just avoided the dragon and did the Tower Knight anyway, since he was insanely easy). So, I was fairly low level at the time, and was no where near being able to wield that flame shield, think it required 22 strength. I think what made that boss the most annoying for me, was actually getting to the boss, you could easily fall to your death trying to even get to him, due to having to carefully drop down to lower planks until you get to the bottom. I never intended to use cheap tactics on him, I was rolling around doging his attacks, shoving soul arrows at him when I could, but I died 5/6 times due to either rolling into a corner(Autotarget for the lose), or alternatively getting him down to low health and him raging. Finally on my final try, I'd got him down to low health, and was rolling around trying to avoid his attacks, with no opening to attack him, else I'd have died, and I happened to roll near the entrence to the Dragon God, and the boss happened to constantly run into the rubble near there without doing anything, so I ran up to him and kept slashing him. I should have waited till I could have gotten that Purple Flame Shield and used it, however, unfortunately you don't really know that until you've tried beating the boss.

The game is certainly much more manageable, and a lot more fun, once you've assembled the basic "kit" - a good shield, a piercing weapon, a magic weapon, a reliable ranged attack, second chance, a nice selection of rings (cling, thief, regen, etc.), and so forth. If they'd included just a tiny bit more hand-holding at the start, I don't think the game would have been nearly so difficult for most folks. Hell, a simple explanation of equip burden and it's effect on fast-rolling would prevent roughly 90% of player frustration right out of the gate.

That said, I still think the game kills you in unexpected, unavoidable, and idiotic ways, and the natural counter to this is an equally unfair and imbalanced play-style that focuses on abusing shitty AI with overpowered weaponry, spells, and tactics. Towards the end, when I was breezing right through everything, I suddenly realized that I was playing like a fucking paranoid cheater. I didn't feel like I'd grown in skill so much as I'd learned to fight dirty.

It doesn't help that the game is horribly balanced.

Still loved it. Probably because a polished action rpg is far and away my favorite sort of game, and this is by far the best we've seen on this generation of consoles. I'd buy a sequel or spin-off in a heart beat.

 

[Twad]

Oblivion; once you reach lvl 20 and arent using magic heavily (aka if you are going rogue or warrior). Its a spike that goes up to infinity.

FEAR2 - the game is ridiculously easy (on hard) except in an underground train near the end where ennemies spawn all over the place and flank you all the time. Only beated it by getting betweenthe two wagons i had access to.. and the AI just.. stopped caring about me. Once thsi was done we immediatly go into a room saturated with snipers and little cover.

 

[Twad]

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky, at the end. The game is pretty easy up until that point after you learn the get in cover and leeeaaaannn HEADSHOT! then at the end, you're just surrounded by enemies. I did that by spamming medkits repeatedly and running from everything, it was seriously ridiculous. Ontop of everything it was at night and they're all wearing fucking crazy ninja suits that you can't see...

On i tried countless time to beat clear sky the "propper way". FAilled everytime.
THe only way i beated clear sky at the end was simply by running backward asap when i can control my character.. (falling down the broken bridge we stand on) and once there, i looked around for a bit, Strelok was just standing on the ground doing nothing for no reason at all (surrounded by invincible ennemies that ignore you no matter what you do) i shot him til he died. Win. Never happened again. Never bothered with that game again.

 

[GundamSentinel]

Homeworld 2: You play the mission where you save the transport ships or whatever, and then the next one you get steam rolled by the enemy's superior number, and unfair unit creation abilities (honestly, them being able to build 13 squadrons of fighters in 2 minutes, while I can only make around 3 in that time is not fair). Although playing the campaign doesn't get you anything, so you might as well stick with Skirmish (which is all sorts of fun).

I just can't get past the fourth mission. Why must that game have adapting difficulty? It just punishes you for doing good. The first Homeworld had something similar with the Kadeshi. Damn, those bastards were tough and annoying, but hijacking all their multibeam frigates is so rewarding.