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- May 11, 2022
The Catalina missions in San Andreas. You're stuck on an ATV and have her screeching at you.
What’s the most egregious example of a difficulty spike in any video game you’ve played?
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Scarthew
kiwifarms.net
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- Jun 7, 2021
Its not hard though. The real weirdness in SA is the optional casino heist chain, the mission where you need to get the blueprint. Unless I missed something like an idiot walking outside after getting the blueprint would start you with a wall of cops shooting you before the screen even faded in and it seemed like a total crapshoot if you'd survive or not. Maybe I was just too dumb to notice an alternate exit or some other option maybe it was some specific patch of ps2 releases but it seemed entirely RNG based whether you survived or not.
Whoopsie Daisy
kiwifarms.net
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- Mar 8, 2023
The Goat in broken sword.
Record of Lodoss war for the dreamcast where you went from mercing enemies to dealing 1 damage. Still never beat the game.
Record of Lodoss war for the dreamcast where you went from mercing enemies to dealing 1 damage. Still never beat the game.
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2021
I also found Wrong Side of the Track easy AND I played it on console, that's because I'm autistic and I had no friends or hobbies, so I had already put at least a couple of hundred hours in to the previous 2 games. Jealous much, n00bs? 
However in GTA 3 it took me a very long time to get passed the early Joey or Salvatore mission where you have to bring hookers to a party near the bridge, I was unaware you could transport more than 1 passenger simultaneously and so I always ran out of time bringing them individually. It was an embarrassingly long time before someone finally told me how to do it and called me a retard. At least a month or two. No I didn't have internet.
However in GTA 3 it took me a very long time to get passed the early Joey or Salvatore mission where you have to bring hookers to a party near the bridge, I was unaware you could transport more than 1 passenger simultaneously and so I always ran out of time bringing them individually. It was an embarrassingly long time before someone finally told me how to do it and called me a retard. At least a month or two. No I didn't have internet.
For a sudden difficulty curve: Marble Zone in the original Sonic The Hedgehog. You're suddenly taken from the high speed, blast processing fueled rush of Green Hill Zone to slow platforming on moving platforms over lava, obstacles that can crush and kill you immediately and spikes everywhere. I never beat it as a child and I played it a LOT. I eventually lost interest in trying and stuck with Sonic 2.
- Joined
- Feb 4, 2018
Hear me out: that fucking Gattsuo in Tales of Vesperia. The fact they decided to make it the demo fight was egregious. Next for Tales of Symphonia we have Iapyx. @$$&%! Kurt Bessel in Graces F and also Guardian Frost is evil. Pure evil.
Huff n Puff in Paper Mario. Fuck you cloud. Get you down to 5 HP and then you use shockwave. Bastard.
Huff n Puff in Paper Mario. Fuck you cloud. Get you down to 5 HP and then you use shockwave. Bastard.
- Joined
- Dec 18, 2019
For me as a child, that was Labyrinth Zone. Neither my brother nor I could beat it when we were young, for it featured long, winding underwater passageways that lacked the more refined level design of its sequels, as well as the shield power-up from Sonic 3 that allowed you to breathe underwater. The boss was a race to the top of a tall, spike-laden passage that is rapidly flooding, and any hit you take will likely send you reeling downwards, eating up even more of what little precious time you have to spend underwater. That was the wall for us.
Speaking of Sonic games I played as a kid, Sonic CD. Most of the bosses in that game are jokes. In fact, one of them literally is a joke, as it was a jab at Nintendo's Famicom. However, once you reach Stardust Speedway, the kiddie gloves come off and you have to race against Metal Sonic in an obstacle-laden course to rescue Amy Rose. Metal Sonic can produce electrical barriers around himself to prevent you from passing, as well as to give himself a speed boost up to catch up to you and potentially ram you from behind. Meanwhile, Eggman is following close by in his hovercraft, firing a pillar of energy that will kill you if you can't keep up your momentum. Whoever reaches the goal first will lock a door behind him, and the loser will be scorched by Eggman's beam.
This race took me dozens of tries as a kid. Not only was it demanding that I master the art behind Sonic's physics, but also to memorize the layout, observe Metal Sonic's behavior and adapt to him. Making matters worse is that I owned the PC port of the game, meaning that my controls were Arrow Keys + ENTER. One thing I've noticed with the HD Steam remaster is that the race is notably easier, as Eggman's catch-up routine seems to be missing, resulting in me waiting several seconds at the goal waiting for Eggman to arrive, where-as normally he'd appear as soon as you made it. This means there's far less tension in the race overall, and I'm not sure how I feel about the nerf to the difficulty.
marvlouslie
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2021
I also found Wrong Side of the Track easy AND I played it on console, that's because I'm autistic and I had no friends or hobbies, so I had already put at least a couple of hundred hours in to the previous 2 games. Jealous much, n00bs?
However in GTA 3 it took me a very long time to get passed the early Joey or Salvatore mission where you have to bring hookers to a party near the bridge, I was unaware you could transport more than 1 passenger simultaneously and so I always ran out of time bringing them individually. It was an embarrassingly long time before someone finally told me how to do it and called me a retard. At least a month or two. No I didn't have internet.
For a sudden difficulty curve: Marble Zone in the original Sonic The Hedgehog. You're suddenly taken from the high speed, blast processing fueled rush of Green Hill Zone to slow platforming on moving platforms over lava, obstacles that can crush and kill you immediately and spikes everywhere. I never beat it as a child and I played it a LOT. I eventually lost interest in trying and stuck with Sonic 2.
Didn't Marble Zone have some water elements in it too? Or is that another level I'm thinking of?
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2019
Unless you happen to have a soul arrow build and you oneshot the fight when you were expecting to be there a few hours. Going in melee they are beasts, but they really do not deal well with kiting.
Jesus fuck yes, that's the one I was going to mention. I still don't remember how the fuck I even managed to pass it and then the game never reaches these levels of insane precision (or at least I didn't get far enough to see it, mostly just liked crazy cop mode)
Ah yes, the Kyriu and Majima fights. I mostly was going through well enough till that point which was a HARD block. Funny thing I learned and abused is that Kyriu will not hit a woman, so if you have Saeko and Eri in your party and keep Ichiban's defense buffed you can have a pretty good control of what to expect from it and it's all about just being careful that Ichi doesn't get decked too hard.
As for something not mentioned in the thread...
Closest I can think of that comes to mind is on Trails to Reverie when Lloyd fights McBurn, the rest of the game had been stupid easy up to that point. It wasn't a deal breaker or anything, far from it, but it did force me to properly equip the party for the first time in the game.
Probably something from Pokemon Clover but so many fights are ballbusting on that game that it's not really saying much. Carlito was a very nasty surprise with his horde of somboludos and was only able to beat him with X stuff on a water sweeper that managed to survive half the fight and scramble through the rest and even then I've heard I played in a patch where he was nerfed, I dread to think if he was even harder.
- Joined
- Aug 1, 2021
Fucking amazing game (and anime) but i agree it was next level. gonna torture myself and play it through again on the steam deck now.
- Joined
- Feb 21, 2018
I'll never get over how people list superbosses and final bosses on this thread. The point of a final boss is that it tests your skills at the game and superbosses are fully optional.
Also I've not seen any mention of any real spike in difficulty (or maybe it happened, but some of the games mentioned I've got no fucking idea what they are), every example have been a fucking bitcoin bubble, the increase in difficulty lasts for like 5 seconds and once you're done with this part it's gone. You want a real difficulty spike that lasts the entire game? I'll tell you. I've watched youtubers play this game called Terraria and apparently in that game the moment you kill the Wall of Flesh it unlocks "hardmode" and hardmode is the rest of the content that's been hidden, it's basically a bunch of new enemies, new biomes, new ores and new items and it looks like every enemy has not only as much health as the boss you just killed earlier, but they also do 10 times as much damage. For the first couple days it's literally unsurvivable until you get better armour and by that point the game starts feeling about the same as before because you can actually defend yourself.
That's a real spike in difficulty, I want to see more examples like this. No opinionated "this mission's hard wah wah!", "this boss is hard wah wah!" dogshit, I want something that's tangible and could fuck you real hard if you're not well prepared and you can't possibly be prepared against this bullshit.
The first game wasn't all that great when you think abt it.
Also I've not seen any mention of any real spike in difficulty (or maybe it happened, but some of the games mentioned I've got no fucking idea what they are), every example have been a fucking bitcoin bubble, the increase in difficulty lasts for like 5 seconds and once you're done with this part it's gone. You want a real difficulty spike that lasts the entire game? I'll tell you. I've watched youtubers play this game called Terraria and apparently in that game the moment you kill the Wall of Flesh it unlocks "hardmode" and hardmode is the rest of the content that's been hidden, it's basically a bunch of new enemies, new biomes, new ores and new items and it looks like every enemy has not only as much health as the boss you just killed earlier, but they also do 10 times as much damage. For the first couple days it's literally unsurvivable until you get better armour and by that point the game starts feeling about the same as before because you can actually defend yourself.
That's a real spike in difficulty, I want to see more examples like this. No opinionated "this mission's hard wah wah!", "this boss is hard wah wah!" dogshit, I want something that's tangible and could fuck you real hard if you're not well prepared and you can't possibly be prepared against this bullshit.
More like shitty level design, a difficulty spike is something that's very intentional. Also there's only 1 area of Marble Zone that's even rly an issue it's the last gauntlet of jumps in act 3 because you can overshoot, undershoot or even if you land perfectly on the tiny teeny platforms, Sonic is slippery and tends to fall off anyways.
The first game wasn't all that great when you think abt it.
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2020
There Is Light At The End
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2021
Warhammer 40k rogue trader. Final boss fight in Cammoragh. Your ass will send you to orbit if you cane with wrong party without at least one officer
likeacrackado
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2020
These guys raped me in my first playthrough. The DLC mission that bad depending on when you do it, but the randomly appearing bosses fucked my shit up. Definitely a trap for beginners. Once you know that they're coming you can plan around fighting them and they help spice up the regular missions in repeat playthroughs. Its a shame most people ignore the DLC after their first experience because the late game armors they drop are pretty fun to use. Supposedly WOTC rebalances them, but I've never played it.
Quintex96
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jan 15, 2019
I will always remember getting ambushed by the beserker queen and watching it tear through my team only for my one dude with 2% chance to instakill on reaction drop it in one shot. never went from 'oh shit' to 'fuck yeah' so fast in my life.
- Joined
- Mar 12, 2021
Some of these have been GTA missions so here is one more N.O.E. Fuck that mission.
Scarthew
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2021
A couple have been... Also is NOE the fly low one? Ok dsp. Just fly low. If 10 year old me can figure out you can cheese it by flying over the flat ocean whats your excuse?
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- Joined
- Aug 19, 2018
There was this one random bandit in a group of other random bandits near the beginning of Dragon's Dogma that was responsible for most of my deaths in that game.
Mega Black
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jan 25, 2022
Recently been playing Sifu and the third boss, the snow samurai lady, is completely fucking horseshit for her first phase. Boss 1 has some cheap insta-kill moves and Boss 2 is good and fair, but 3 was clearly someone's fucking waifu because her first phase is completely antithetical to the rest of the game and zero fun to fight because her two most common attack strings are practically impossible to dodge or parry effectively, and she will simply shrug off many attacks or insta-dodge out of the way sometimes if you dare to get more than two hits on her at a time.
Approached her with an age of 25 my first time and left the stage at 48, only died to the second phase once and twice in the main level. Horseshit.
Approached her with an age of 25 my first time and left the stage at 48, only died to the second phase once and twice in the main level. Horseshit.
- Joined
- May 11, 2022
I forgot about that one. Yeah basically all you can do is sprint past the cops and hope you don't die before you can get a car.
Another BS GTA mission is The Driver in VC. Totally random if you can complete it or it, since you can drive perfectly and then a car will pop up and spin you out.
Scarthew
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2021
Half the time it despawned your car because it was too close or because it spawned a cop car there so it got replaced. I wanna believe there's a trick to it because of how high quality SA is everywhere else but I imagine it just went less tested because its optional content in an already massive game.