What’s the most egregious example of a difficulty spike in any video game you’ve played?

[Kiwi & Cow]

If you spend all your time on forums telling people to "git gud" or "skill issue", it's everyone else who has the problem and needs to touch grass.

lmao

I don't, but you really like to tell people what they can or can't say don'tcha?

lmao

 

[Drag-on Knight 91873]

Valkyria Chronicles Chapter 7. Sure, there's speedrunning videos on it now, but it's a complex level that requires slowing down a massive tank that's only vulnerable at specific times and can only be damaged in specific ways. It also introduces Selvaria, who's got scout movement range, heavy machine gun damage, sniper range, can damage tanks, and is invincible on this map. If you don't know how the boss tank moves and how it attacks, it's a significant jump in difficulty compared to the levels before it.

Valkyria Chronicles in general is a game that demands you play at optimum efficiency and punishes sub-optimal play which often includes moving the tank. Ideally, you only use the tank for smoke grenades and mobile cover instead of combat. It's also counter-intuitive in that you don't want to deploy all troops at the start of the battle. Rather, it's better to move one unit multiple times to get the most movement range and capture command posts instead of normal fire and maneuver. In fact, some advised plans in the game can be outright wrong for S rank. In chapter 3, your forces are split between tank killing and a flanking group. The flanking group is supposed to be the one on offense while the tank killing group is supposed to lure their tanks out for you to destroy. Now, look at the A rank strategy on the wiki page. Pretty much the only way to A rank chapter 3 is to be overleveled and overequipped.

 

[Ibanez RG 350EX]

you really like to tell people what they can or can't say don'tcha?

You can say whatever you like, but I'm absolutely going to make fun of you for being a faggot for bragging about being better than someone else at a video game.

 

[Kiwi & Cow]

You can say whatever you like, but I'm absolutely going to make fun of you for being a faggot for bragging about being better than someone else at a video game.

Nobody was bragging about anything tho. You were raging cuz you were told that you were fucking awful at a game because you suck at some earlier point of the game whilst that part is considerably easier than later parts of the game.

You're being the faggot. A faggot who can't learn to improve at anything and will instead lash out at anyone telling you to get better at it. You're fucking disabled mate.

 

[Ibanez RG 350EX]

Nobody was bragging about anything tho. You were raging cuz you were told that you were fucking awful at a game because you suck at some earlier point of the game whilst that part is considerably easier than later parts of the game.

Nah, you're thinking of the other guy who's bad at flying. What a loser, am I right?

 

[Kiwi & Cow]

Nah, you're thinking of the other guy who's bad at flying. What a loser, am I right?

You talking about dis?

The Wrong Side Of The Tracks is fucking easy. Just keep your distance from the train so the fat fuck can actually shoot the Vagos and not the train. I just fired up GTA:SA and did it first try. Keep yourself in line with the Vagos as far to the right of the train as possible and you'll do it no problem. All the elevations are detrimental, just stay on the titular wrong side of the tracks rather than off of them.

He literally clarified a comment later that the mission was infact easy, you're a pleb and even showed a video of it being done with almost no problem.

If you got filtered by TWSOTT you genuinely should write at Kotaku. I'm not talking about 100%ing Yakuza on the hardest difficulty, I'm talking about a mission from the beginning of a game from 2004 where all you have to do is:
Direct link: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zrTSPCnwLU4 1. Keep your distance from the train
2. Keep up with the front of the train

And you're done. The Freefall mission is way fucking harder, because even if you've mastered flying controls, you're still limited by the shitty plane.

Also watch your mouth, I wouldn't want to get called an hypocrite if I was you mr "I'm absolutely going to make fun of you for being a faggot for bragging".

 

[Pissmaster]

He literally clarified a comment later that the mission was infact easy, you're a pleb and even showed a video of it being done with almost no problem.

He did admit to playing the PC version, after insisting those notorious missions really aren't that difficult. Most of us played it on PlayStation 2, where they were.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

The enemy scaling in Borderlands 2's new game plus is completely fucked. The first time you finish the game and do ng+ things scale in fairly reasonable manner, but after that the enemies become fridges made of cement that can eat 10 sniper rounds to the head and one shot you. To compensate for this enemies have higher elemental weaknesses, but that just means you're probably going to have to juggle a bunch of annoying dogshit weapons just to have a chance at killing even the weakest enemies.

NG+ was a bitch unless you had legendaries or appropriate quest rewards because dumbass Randy wanted you to grind the end-game boss for them. It's why the random guns in BL2 suck compared to BL1's and the legendary drop rate got nerfed in BL2. I remember the work arounds people came up with and how Gearbox would then nerf them, because we weren't playing the game right. In short, Randy Pitchford is a piss chugging dumbass.

Valkyria Chronicles Chapter 7. Sure, there's speedrunning videos on it now, but it's a complex level that requires slowing down a massive tank that's only vulnerable at specific times and can only be damaged in specific ways. It also introduces Selvaria, who's got scout movement range, heavy machine gun damage, sniper range, can damage tanks, and is invincible on this map. If you don't know how the boss tank moves and how it attacks, it's a significant jump in difficulty compared to the levels before it.

Valkyria Chronicles in general is a game that demands you play at optimum efficiency and punishes sub-optimal play which often includes moving the tank. Ideally, you only use the tank for smoke grenades and mobile cover instead of combat. It's also counter-intuitive in that you don't want to deploy all troops at the start of the battle. Rather, it's better to move one unit multiple times to get the most movement range and capture command posts instead of normal fire and maneuver. In fact, some advised plans in the game can be outright wrong for S rank. In chapter 3, your forces are split between tank killing and a flanking group. The flanking group is supposed to be the one on offense while the tank killing group is supposed to lure their tanks out for you to destroy. Now, look at the A rank strategy on the wiki page. Pretty much the only way to A rank chapter 3 is to be overleveled and overequipped.

VC is a pain in the dick until Alicia becomes OP, and then she one rounds everything.

My personal one, and it's sad, Master Blaster on the NES. Never could beat the boss to get the Hover gear. It was the boss who left shells behind, could never get the timing right to beat his last form.

 

[Fields Of Rye]

Lobotomy corp has arguably one of the most difficult and fucking brutal difficulty spikes of basically any game that isn't due to poor design or people getting filtered (was it battletoads where people just had to fucking speed up, but most people didn't know how". Nor is it like games that turn into DDR, or games that require some brutal patience or cheesey strats to even attempt

The game is 50 days long, and is like an SCP management game where you add another monster to your roster every day. Think of it like this forum. One of the members tips the lolcow, you get sued. Every now and then drama pops up and you have a little emergency. By day 50, it's pretty much 50 retarded lolcows murdering each other and the users in a perpetual state of panic the moment something goes wrong.

Day 49 is the day where

Spoiler: things go wrong

You're upper admin team revolts, periodically releasing all the spergs, removing your ability to pause, and basically turning a very slow, methodical, knowledge based game into a brutal RTS where the wrong button can literally kill everyone in the facility

It's the only time I've actual felt relieved after finishing something in a videogame. You're sitting there staring at a screen with every agent you have been using for the last 50 days dead after going pretty much deathless. Each of them specifically honed for this fight.

Except... it's not over.

That was day 49/50.

 

[Scarthew]

A lot of spectacle action games seem to have this issue, a number of Bayonetta bosses (and even mooks) can steamroll you early on, especially when they're only properly manageable once you've got all your skills and shit set up.

I would agree with you if you didnt pick a game directed by kamiya. Bayo is 100% balanced around NG which is why you can start a new game on infinite climax once the difficulty is unlocked. At worst you need specific upgrades which requires some foreknowledge on buy order. Like theres some collectibles you need unite ball to get in wonderful 101 and itd be wise to grab dodge mine before the first vorken fight. You need air hike and alastar flight to get some blue orb fragments in dmc1 and you probably want stinger as soon as possible to help with time requirements on S ranks.

Of course im talking about strats for ranks and completion on a fresh save. On a first playthru/casual run you don't need these at all and the game equips you for the situation. Especially bayo since all you need to avoid any situation is dodge timing.

 

[I'm Really Feeling It]

I cruised by 99% of FF XIII-LR not doing all that much about levelling my skills. Got the sekrit 13th day ending first try... and pretty much locked myself out of finishing the game because the boss destroyed my ass. Partly on me but I'm still counting it as a spike because the entire rest of the game I managed.

 

[PandaChai]

That motherfucking ice troll on The 7000 Steps. Then it drops down to "baby's first video game" difficulty again.

 

[Pissmaster]

Oh, here's a good one. In XCOM 2 Collection, there are a number of bosses that wrecked my game out of the blue. They're ultra powerful and can slaughter your whole squad, no problem. They also recur throughout your game, and pop up randomly.

The trick to deal with them is to look for this DLC, turn it off, and have a great time reading all the negative reviews.

 

[nicetry]

if you played season mode on tecmo super bowl for the NES the computer opponent went from dogshit to almost impossible to beat if you went undefeated thru the first 15 games. i'd be routinely winning games 77-0 only to get to the final regular season game undefeated and all of a sudden the computer becomes unstoppable; they'd score on every possession and the only way i could ever win that final game is to get lucky with timing such that i scored a TD every possession including the final one before halftime to go up by 7. if your record going into that last game was even slightly worse (14-1 or 13-2) it'd be an easy win

Then comes level 3, The Woods. If it's the 90s and you don't have internet access yet, this is the end of the game. Thanks for playing.

i had the mickey mouse game as a kid too and don't remember having any problems with the tree level. probably just dumb luck. there was some other part of that game that always annoyed the shit out of me and my brother when we played thru it, but it wasn't that part. i'll have to check out that LP and see if i can figure out what it was

 

[Pissmaster]

i had the mickey mouse game as a kid too and don't remember having any problems with the tree level. probably just dumb luck. there was some other part of that game that always annoyed the shit out of me and my brother when we played thru it, but it wasn't that part. i'll have to check out that LP and see if i can figure out what it was

Well in that case I'll ask my mom to call your mom and you can come over to my house and beat it for me after school.

 

[Gravityqueen4life]

any mission from Jak 2.

 

[PrimeVector]

Knights of the Old Republic 2 has a difficulty spike when you get to the surface of Telos. It's manageable if you actually understand the gameplay mechanics, but it's a great filter if you've messed up your character's build. I think the reason for the spike is to incentivize the player to Bao-Dur's Shieldbreaker ability, but it wind's up not being all that helpful because the combat isn't turn based.

 

[Overly Serious]

Probably has to be an honourable mention for King's Quest V and the infamous "throw a pie at a yeti" encounter.


Have pie? Throw it at the yeti to pass. Don't have pie or (rather sensible one thinks) have eaten the pie, and you're screwed with no clue what to do. @Doppelmonger knows what I'm talking about.

From my own experiences I'll list two and a kind-of. The first is Alien: Isolation. Fantastic game that must only be played on Hard (the recommended) or Nightmare. I've occasionally seen people play on Normal or Easy and it angers me - really neuters what the game should be. Playing this alone in the dark with headphones, that feeling of being hunted is superb. Anyway, the spike... the alien isn't the only enemy in the game and this isn't the first time you have to deal with the alien, but iirc it's Chapter Four that is "the medical wing". You're roaming around trying to find the thing you need whilst trapped in this one section with the alien. The game isn't exactly easy per se but in this section you suddenly find it really easy to get trapped, end up hiding in lockers the whole time as the alien keeps doubling-back, doing circuits around the corridors, etc. But it's not actually a bad thing, it's deliberate. This whole section is meant to force you to learn to use your tools, to use distractions to lure it away, to learn how to listen for where it is and learn when to hide and when to go for it. It's vital. I watched the odd streamer play it and sometimes they will absolutely not use their tools and just get more and more frustrated. Or they blunder through eventually and wonder why the game is so hard. Well it's because you're playing with two hands behind your back by never using your tools properly because you never learned. Excellent game, if a little exhausting by the end.

Second game that nobody will know - Sorcerer Lord:

https://worldofspectrum.org/archive/software/games/sorcerer-lord-pss

This old Spectrum game from days or yore had you moving your armies around visiting keeps and citadels to alert people to return of the SORCERER LORD! He wasn't just a lord, he was a SORCERER LORD! Each location you visited helped you raise more troops and get more leaders, some of which could use magic which was stronger near rune rings. The general strategy seemed to be aggressive early recruitment and falling back to combat his armies in strength rather than trying to hold the initial line. But as a small child I could not beat it. About a year ago, it randomly popped into my mind and I found a Spectrum emulator and decided to try if adult me could beat it. Nope - as before I'm doing fine about half-way through the game and then suddenly swarms of armies come pouring down from the North and swamp my forces. I came closer but no joy - and this was on the Easy setting. Maybe I'll give it another go sometime and see if I can finally have closure. Would be interested if anybody ever beat this game.

I promised a "kind of" entry. That's Marvel's Midnight Suns by the same people who did X-Com. It was apparently a commercial let down which is a colossal shame because the game play is one of the most deceptively deep and rich I've ever played, no joking. I think people saw it as a collecting card game which I suppose superficially it is, but it's more like Death Sudoku as you try to work out combinations of plays that will get you through.


Whilst initial shuffling of your deck is random the game is deterministic thereafter so you can play and play a fight over and over trying moves to different positions, different targeting choices, different sequences of powers and abilities getting further and further towards success, or deciding you've gone down a wrong path and going back some and trying something else. It's an absolute joy if you do what I do and put the difficulty up every chance it lets you. Why do I list it here? Well, there are multiple points in the game where you come across something new and you absolutely get stomped and you genuinely think there's no way you can actually beat it. I almost always play games on maximum difficulty (except Sorceror Lord, darn you!) and at points in Midnight Suns, I was right on the edge of giving up but I'd go away, have a think, come back with a different approach, having worked out some previously unnoticed synergy between cards or a new strategy and eke my way forward. I think about four, maybe five times in the game, I hit that point. For the final battle I literally had two sides of hand-written notes beside me detailing the exact moves, enemies, power sequences I'd worked out. Playing through them took me about three hours but I think it took me nearly eight to actually work everything out. Beating that game on Epic III was incredibly frustrating and rewarding and I loved it. Side-note, if you like Marvel comics stuff at all, the game has an insane amount of Easter Eggs and recorded dialogue and is more based on comics interpretations than the MCU. Anyway, the game (if played on proper difficulties) is not just a sudden difficulty spike but a whole run of massive difficulty spikes. Every story mission (interspersed with non-story ones) forces you to re-think and adapt. One of the best games I've ever played and did so badly that there will likely never be a sequel.

 

[30+GameOvers]

In Operation Darkness, a neat little TRPG for the 360, you play as WW2 soldiers in a squad. The game starts out innocently enough, but you soon find out that this universe has vampires, werewolves, zombies and magic. You are eased into this, you fight normal Germans for a little while and eventually unlock the Werewolf superpower.
What I am saying is that the game is conditioning you to play it like you would any other WW2 game: Equip your guys with guns and ammo, maybe a Bazooka or grenades as well. There are tanks after all, and they will fuck you up if you don't have any anti tank weapons.
The game eventually starts introducing the other supernatural enemies as well along with the occasional boss and the regular troops: Zombies that come in groups, Vampires that act like super units with ultra speed and magic(they become normalized enemies later on) and many vehicles to boot. I never made it that far, but I heard there are also mechas and Jin-Roh like powered armored troops around the end game as well.
The game introduces magic to you, but you are still incentivized to keep guns/ammo/explosives handy since you cannot depend on them...that is a HUGE mistake and will fuck you up if you treat this like your run of the mill WW2 tactics game.
You see, once the magical and supernatural enemies start becoming the majority, you notice that they move fast, I mean really fast. The more gear you take, the lower your sequence is, I forgot which mission breaks the camel's back as far as guns build goes but you will know it because enemies will get to have several turns before you can make even one(they get to keep guns, grenades and extra ammo of course since their sequence is so ridiculously high). This never lets up, only gets worse as more supernatural enemies fill the maps and the game gives you special objectives and scenarios. However, you will never make it that far if you don't spec into magic as fast as possible, even before you start seeing mana potions(water canteens) in the shop. The meta seems to be to take as little as possible with you, generally healing supplies and some grenades, maybe a knife or a pistol or forego grenades to carry a Bazooka. If you start carrying extra ammo, Bazookas along with grenades and mines, or god forbid normal weapons like SMGs/Rifles/LMGs you will simply be too slow to do anything. There are a few squadmates who use specific weapons as part of their skills(sniper needs a sniper rifle, heavy gunner does more damage with an LMG ect) but for the most part, you save your looted weapons for the generic SAS soldiers that never unlock magic and serve as backup. Once you unlock special abilities/werewolves and magic you need to spec into that as soon as possible and never look back, except the game will never tell you this. Even worse, there is a specific soldier that is with you for most of the game, but then he gets taken away from you at a certain point. That means that any EXP that goes towards him is useless past a certain point, yet another beginner's trap.

I love this game, but I never finished. I can't remember how many times I started it and had to put it down because I just crossed an unstoppable wall: First it was the mission with tank ambushes and your first Vampire SS soldiers that filtered me out, that's when I learned to always carry anti tank weapons on every unit. Then, in another playthru, I was filtered out in one of the midgame missions which floods you with vampires in a small urban area. That's when I learned that magic actually matters on some units, but foolishly thought that guns would still have a use later on since the game incentivizes you to keep named squadmates with them. Last time I recall playing, I got around 75% thru the game, past that betrayal portion I talked about, but realized far too late that my guys were not proficient in magic enough and I did not have time to complete a timed objective thanks to the enemies not dying fast enough and getting too many turns. Named squadmates dying also did not help. Someday I hope to finish this game, but I will have to get really prepared for the long run, unfortunately info on the game is hard to find since it was never popular so I don't really know what the meta is. For all I know, what I was really supposed to do is to create a min/max build and magic becomes inferior to melee attacks or something in the last few missions of the game. I wouldn't put it past this game.



So, the TL;DR is that the game that makes sure to remind you at every turn that you're fighting a real war with real soldiers using guns, but you're supposed to throw away yours and treat the game like you would a fantasy RPG instead. The game lulls you in with many easy or run of the mill missions, until "that mission" comes up and kicks your ass, forcing you to completely change your entire squad loadout and playstyles. This happens several times, and there is a possibility that your build wasn't good enough and you need to start over to get it right this time. Not for the faint of heart, assuming you can even find a copy of the game these days.

 

[Doppelmonger]

King's Quest V

"ThAT cUsTaRd PiE lOoKs DeLiCiOuS"

I spent days with a translating dictionary in hand trying to figure out what I was doing wrong at that part. Until a teacher at school told me that I should have eaten the lamb instead of the pie.

*Restart game because all the saves I had were after I ate the pie*