Games that ramped up difficulty and dang near destroyed the experience

[Sunrider]

I'm probably gonna be laughed at for this, but Total Annihilation. It starts off simple, like all RTS games, but the campaign started kicking my ass left, right and center halfway in.
I'm not an RTS retard in general, I do fine in all the C&C games and Starcraft 2, but TA just destroyed me.
Starcraft 1 too, for that matter. I never managed to beat the campaign without cheating.

 

[Aidinthel]

This was the time where patches were irrelevant to console gamers.

He has the game on Steam...

 

[Reaper195]

Dark Souls. I was expecting a dark fantasy experience. What I got was a game that gave me a health flask, allowed me to kill my enemies and then use the health flask, refill it by resting at a bonfire only to have the enemies respawn. Not to mention the story was shithouse. Had I known of the game before I bought it on a whim, I would have looked at the game cover and told it to fuck off to the farthest corner of hell.

I generally never play games on harder difficulties, because I'd rather enjoy what I'm doing than continue to die in the same area again and again and then break the game. I also prefer story over a length of a game (Halo, MW (Well, ish)). Or how much there is to do in a game that isn't grinding (Skyrim).

 

[2fish]

Vampire the Masquerade Blood lines does that if you have the wrong build for the last boss. I still beat it, but it was far harder to beat my first time than my second run through. Didn't ruin it but a nice WTF moment.

Ninja Gaiden for the xbox when I first got it kicked my ass so hard I stopped playing a about 6 months. Later I picked it up again and eventually became a master ninja. Again not a ruin but a game with a vacation time requirement.

All the others I would list I went in knowing they were hard or because they were hard so I can't count them.

 

[Lev The Red]

prototype.

that game's difficulty curve was like a roller coaster. some missions were mind numbingly easy, and other were maddeningly difficult. i never even finished the game because of the final boss.
"kill this dude with a ton of regenerating health, super strong and far reaching attacks, on a small playing field in only 2 minutes."

i normally have a pretty good grip on my temper, after my 20th try i shattered my controller on the ground, took the game out and snapped it in half.

 

[Dango]

Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood had the most ridiculously impossible mission. I had to grad a rocket launcher in between 2 tanks that were continuously shooting at me, while being in a plaza surrounded by enemies, while also making sure my squad wasn't getting killed. I still haven't been able to get past it.

 

[Rodrigo Girao]

If you've played it, this tune can give you nightmares.

 

[Dagnius]

snip

Just curious what boss was giving you trouble? I remember fighting Zodiark and dying hundreds of time to the point I stopped playing for a year but other than that I managed to get through the bosses eventually.

It's been several months since I've played it. The boss I got annoyed with and quit on was an Undead Dragon (Elder Wyrm I believe(after Tiamat)) that summoned (what I'm assuming are) two trees that do AoE damage and need to be killed. I should be used to fights like those considering my history with WoW but for some reason I just couldn't win. I had had no problems before Tiamat, it was like hitting a wall, but I had some time to kill and leveled up enough to move on only to hit another wall. I think if I were to get a 7 or 10 chain Quickening I could probably kill it. It's been a while though so I'm not too sure on all the details =p

However, I think a better example of a game that suddenly became difficult (for me, anyways) is Valkyria Chronicles when you fight the Emperor's tank for the first time. The tank with guns all all sides in which constantly moves forward. That battle was the first actual hard battle I had come across and I never beat it. I don't like losing troops and I'd always (somehow) have a troop, usually a good one, left behind only to be one-shot by the woman with the artifact weapon. The fight itself isnt really hard, just long and tedious, but I guess i'm just too nice and don't like the idea of my troops being left to die, especially the cool ones like Ted and of course the main sub-characters.

 

[Imat]

Majesty 2. My first playthrough I had no trouble with the majority of the levels (First time I saw Werewolves in M2 was also the first time I failed). Then the boss comes and all my Heroes die in a single hit. I tried many times to beat him, wound up using a cheat to give me infinite cash and just swarming the guy with hundreds of low-level heroes.

On that same note, Majesty 1 can get impossible in freestyle games. The expansion adds in Yetis and Frost Dragons. You can set the game to spawn those from the get-go. Impossible to win.

 

[Dagnius]

Skyrim did this as well as Oblivion. In Skyrim things felt too easy until I would get to that one draugh that one shot killed me every time...forcing me to go back to Adept mode just to barely survive.

Skyrim seems to have a difficulty ramp when entering a dungeon as compared to fighting outside (most noticeable when just starting out). I remember when first getting the game and playing as a mage. I had so much fun melting the faces of bandits outside a ruined fort, but When I went inside the dungeon It was a different story. I shot a bandit with an Ice Spike and he just turns around, pulls out an axe, and I'm pretty sure it was a 1 hit kill, if not, then it was two. Special slow-mo finisher scene and all! I had almost quit playing my mage after dying in there repeatedly but I eventually cleared the place out with the help of running in circles and jumping over tables/shutting doors behind me. That sucked! But now that I look back, it was pretty funny.

(Sorry for posting twice in a row so soon but I just now got a chance to look over some other people's posts since earlier)

 

[Krion_Vark]

As far as advice on Batman, just scope out the area and make sure you take out the snipers that are in no one else's field of vision. It took me two tries, I never noticed the time allottment decreasing. You may be rushing a bit because you see the end of the game looming and it is making you anxious.

It is true that there is a time allotment I ignored that part once I finished Protocol 10 and I was hit with a GAME OVER like 3 minutes later.

 

[Vault101]

Halo 2 on Legendary...my God.

Also, in Mass Effect the fight with Lady Benezia was incredibly hard considering it was one of the first missions. I must have done that same fight scene about 50 times over.

Ive always found the fight with Saren to be rediculously difficult (deformed saren that is)

 

[silver wolf009]

Spider-Man: Web of Shadows


After a couple basic training missions there's this one open area combat thing where you have to take out a dozen snipers in under two minutes. REALLY hated that part.

Actually, from each sniper you can web strike to the other without moving at all. It made the entire encounter an exercise in timing.

OT: Hmmmm... Tetris!

Okay, now for a serious answer. I'd have to say Call of Duty games on Veteran, especially World at War. Hello sir, I heard you liked grenades. Would you care for some?

 

[PinkiePyro]

I love Psychonauts but definitely the meat circus level was a pain in the ass. Shame it left the game with a bit of a sour end note.

seconded after around 50 tries to get past the knife thrower part I gave up ..

 

[Black Arrow Officer]

Skyrim. Walk into one area, and you kill all of the enemies in one hit, walk into another and you're dead before you realize what's even happening. A little consistency, fellas?

 

[sooperman]

Battalion Wars 2 It was an early title for the Wii, and I don't blame you if you didn't hear about it. It's as easy as you might expect of an RTS on the Wii, but the last few levels are stacked against you to preposterous degrees. I think it's the only Wii game that I played but never beat.

 

[Orks da best]

Warhammer:Battle March

Now I'll admit I'm no great shakes at RTS games but I managed to work my way through the Empire campaign on normal difficulty and was enjoying it until the final battle.Suddenly the game just ramped up the difficulty to ridiculous levels and I repeatedly got my ass handed to me.Annoyingly too there's no checkpoints which means you have to restart from the start every time and considering you can easily be 25+ mins into a battle before defeat it's a pain in the ass having to go back to the beginning.Hell I even tried dropping the difficulty to easy and still couldn't beat the damn thing.It remains on my shelf unbeaten to this day

eh wot i have beaten that campagian a few time, best tactic, mass range units with 1-2 strong melee forces.

 

[LawlessSquirrel]

Silent Hill: Homecoming has a sudden difficulty jump when you come to the Scarlet boss fight. The vast majority of people I know who quit that game before finishing it did so because they couldn't kill her.

She's easy enough to beat once you've done it before, but beating her for the first time is a real pain (especially if you're low on/out of healing items). I'm not even sure WHY she's so difficult for only the first playthrough, but she has a nasty habit of breaking people.