• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Games with backwards difficulty curves

Basically, games where the hardest part is the beginning, then the game gets easier.

It's... pretty rare. I can only think of three games off the top of my head. Kid Icarus is infamous for this. Another is Breath of Fire. Although BoF never gets really hard, the hardest boss is the General in the robot, which is near the beginning. The beginning is also the only part of the game where you have to grind.

I'll add Fallout 3 to the list. In the beginning you're literally struggling to survive. You have little ammo, can't shoot for shit, guns are worthless, crap armor, can't carry much. Using your defenses around you. The shootout at the Supermarket was pretty freaking difficult the first time through, even the shootout at the school was hard. You're shitting your pants the first time you see one of the stronger Super Mutants. At the end you're freaking Rambo doing headshot after headshot with little regard for defense, and can even have an ally with a freaking Gatling lazer gun! Heck, your ally can do all the work while you just sit in a corner, if you'd like. I'd say Fallout 3 does its flip in difficulty after you get past The Mall. For me that's where things went from hard to piss easy.

Any others you'd like to add?
 

Seda

Member
Lost Odyssey's first two bosses may be the toughest in the entire game.

Also, the first few missions of Final Fantasy Tactics always seem harder to me.

EDIT: And I don't just mean due to unfamiliarity with the game. These bosses in Lost Odyssey and missions in FFT are simply harder IMO.
 

TheExodu5

Banned
The Witcher 2.

Risen.

I tend to prefer a backwards difficulty curve in RPGs. It makes it seem that I'm legitimately getting stronger over the course of the game.
 
Most rpgs tend to be like this.

Being unfamiliar with the game system, and having limited options and what not can really make the beginning parts of a game a bore and/or super frustrating.
 
Persona 4. Shadow Yukiko, the first major boss, is probably the hardest unless you fuse a very specific persona. After that point you have so many options on how to deal with stuff that it's much easier to find a strategy that works for your particular play style.
 
Every Castlevania since SotN.
Every Final Fantasy game released in the United States, in fact most Squaresoft/Square-Enix games.

Basically any game where you collect items to become more powerful. There's no ceiling and even if you don't grind few bosses offer real challenge.
 

AAK

Member
Devil May Cry 3. Once you get Devil Trigger the game gets significantly easier. It's also alleviated with the Blu Orbs among other things. Well.... minus DMD mode.
 

Robot Pants

Member
Ninja gaiden games. First chapter is always harder than the following few. It may spike up again towards the end but beginning is always tough.
 

upandaway

Member
Tons of RPGs do this. The first town/whatever is way stronger than you. And then as you go on you get easily overleveled just by progressing normally, and get tons of options for attacks/spells/items/whatever. Though the final boss area is always stupid hard.

Earthbound was sort of like that. That gang almost required grinding.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
Came here to post The Witcher 2. Less so now with all the patches, but a less equipped, lower level Geralt got the shit kicked out of him versus end game strong Geralt.
 

BHK3

Banned
Bioshock 2.

The big sister whooped my ass the first time, I almost didn't know how I could win.

Everything after that is a cakewalk though, it actually becomes too easy at some points. You can roll through everyone and you have so much money it becomes very hard to die.
 

Juice

Member
I think tons of games are this way. Most games where the player can upgrade himself suffer from this somewhat. Deus Ex: HR was way harder at the outset, for example.
 

Kazerei

Banned
FFVIII stands out, because you start with only a few GFs and little magic. Once the game opens up a bit, it's easy to become overpowered.
 

Coen

Member
I'd argue Infamous and Arkham City get easier. Sure, the enemies and bosses in both games get tougher as the story progresses but the added skills, as well as a bigger life bar, make for an easier game. Zelda games tend to have this too, now that I think about it.
 

Vanillalite

Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Tons of RPGs do this. The first town/whatever is way stronger than you. And then as you go on you get easily overleveled just by progressing normally, and get tons of options for attacks/spells/items/whatever. Though the final boss area is always stupid hard.

Earthbound was sort of like that. That gang almost required grinding.

Pretty much this. 1st boss in a lot of RPGs especially JRPGs like LO that was mentioned above can be really tough to get going. Then it gets easy the rest of the way until the very end when some devs feel like to finish the journey you have to do some ridiculous dungeon and/or boss.
 

JazzmanZ

Member
Pokemon.

If you picked charmander.

If you picked chikorita.

If you picked Torchic.

If you picked Chimchar.

If you didn't get the monkey for the 1st gym.
 

STG!

Member
Milon's Secret Castle. Comes off brutally difficult with only one life and no saves, but after some Zelda I style exploration and items the game isn't so rough.

I really liked KI because of this backward difficulty.
 
Fire Emblem! Always start out with a band of weaklings, need to baby them and fight carefully, by the end of the game your hard work has paid off and you're steamrolling everything.
 
I instantly thought of FFXI. Valkurm Dunes was usually the hardest place in the game... at least in 2003.

Bahaha, worst part is all the other zones were worse. Its just a lot of people never made it past valkurm. Yuhtunga Jungle springs to mind pre train nerf.
 
The better question is, what games don't peak difficulty wise earlier in the game? Most games with any sort of progression system seem to fall into that pattern of getting easier as you play.
 
I'm thinking through RPG's right now. I'm not sure I totally agree. I guess most get easier, but for me I think it's more how you play the game. I don't grind unless I have to.

I'm thinking through a few...
Final Fantasy I - I think this one gets easier.
Final Fantasy II - Gets way easier. Game is broken though...
Final Fantasy IV - Seems to stay pretty consistent until the last level, which is hard.
Final Fantasy VI - Hardest parts of the game for me were the Star Mountain and Kefka's palace. Because you have to use most or all of your party, some members of which just suck or are underleveled. Plus you are WAY overpowered at the beginning of the game with Edgar's tools. So this one definitely gets harder.
Crystalis - Gets easier.
Final Fantasy X - I don't remember ever being in danger.
Final Fantasy VII - Seems consistent.
Dragon Warrior - Gets easier
Dragon Warrior 2 - Last area is FUCKING HARD AS FUCK.
Dragon Warrior 4 - Gets easier, but resets multiple times which is annoying.
7th Saga - Game is unbeatable, IMO.
Chrono Trigger - Um... don't remember.
Secret of Mana - Gets easier.

I only play older RPG's....
 
One Piece: Unlimited Cruise

By the end of the game, it felt like all my characters were so overpowered, I had to give myself a handicap just to feel satisfied with the final boss.
 
F-Zero X. There's no way I should be winning cups on the highest difficulty as Black Shadow. From what I remember, his vehicle is supposed to be incapable of doing such things.
 
K

kittens

Unconfirmed Member
Halo 2 on Legendary is the quintessential answer. Effing Cairo Station, man.
 
I think tons of games are this way. Most games where the player can upgrade himself suffer from this somewhat. Deus Ex: HR was way harder at the outset, for example.
Actually, the first Deus Ex is pretty rough at the beginning, too, when you're just starting to get a feel for how the AI works and the proper methods for taking them out unseen, and keep screwing up as a result. It starts smoothing out a bit around Hell's Kitchen, and once you start getting augmentations up the wazoo sometime around Hong Kong, it just gets easier and easier, even with more powerful enemies coming your way.

Then you start a new game after finishing the main campaign, and realize just how much of a crutch those augmentations really were. At least, by this point, you're well aware of how dumb the AI generally is and have a much easier time exploiting that.

That's my experience with the game, anyway.
 

Seda

Member
Fire Emblem! Always start out with a band of weaklings, need to baby them and fight carefully, by the end of the game your hard work has paid off and you're steamrolling everything.

Especially Radiant Dawn because the Dawn Brigade is underpowered, and that really doesnt change throughout the game.
 

Sub_Level

wants to fuck an Asian grill.
Persona 4. Shadow Yukiko, the first major boss, is probably the hardest unless you fuse a very specific persona. After that point you have so many options on how to deal with stuff that it's much easier to find a strategy that works for your particular play style.

It's been a really long time since I beat Persona 4, but I was playing on Normal and has no trouble using Izanagi until Contrarian King (now THAT is a hard boss)
 
Top Bottom