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[Riposte]

Yeah this is a pain in the mf ass to do first time. After playing the game about 10 times I do it no problem now.

Also this difficulty spike in GoW 3 on Chaos (Very Hard) Mode. Took me like 9 hours over 2 days to beat...

Haha, that was a great fight. Hell of a difficulty spike. I recall the rock-scorpion boss being tough too.

 

[Ultratech]

Yeah, but you only had 70 lvls to do, and lvling wasn't as ridiculously easy as it is right now from what i remember. The lack of group quests and tough elites nowadays doesn't help. And Cataclysm heroics happened right after people got used to the (also) ridiculously easy WOTLK heroics.

All of this made the spike in difficulty a little more painful than back in BC days! No wonder we had DPS queues that lasted 40-45 mins back then, when it was 10-12 mins in WOTLK.

Oh god...I remember some of the old BC Heroics being particularly nasty.
Shattered Halls on Heroic is a great example. It was manageable on normal, but Heroic was pretty damn tough and threw literally tons of mobs at you.
Like you'd get a pack of about 6-7 dudes, CC 2-3 of them, then I'd usually have to kite one around while the others beat the rest to death.

 

[CoilShot]

God Hand

Spoiler

I love God Hand and I still play it

 

[Moss]

This image from the first post evoked a violent knee-jerk reaction from me. I barely remember playing the game (I was so young), but I vaguely recall this face and the terrible anger it caused.

 

[.GqueB.]

Yeah this is a pain in the mf ass to do first time. After playing the game about 10 times I do it no problem now.

Also this difficulty spike in GoW 3 on Chaos (Very Hard) Mode. Took me like 9 hours over 2 days to beat...

I played on normal and it still took me a while. I actually stopped playing the game for about a week or so it was such a pain the ass.

 

[GimMick]

Also, in Super Monkey Ball 1, there is Expert Level 7. I think everyone agrees that it is a lot harder.

I never have much trouble with this one when I take my time, but I agree it's a fairly hard level early one compared to most of the levels that follow. I'd personally nominate the SEGA level (Expert 22) though, I didn't even know what to do there at first :lol

 

[Razek]

Here is another one. If you're trying to do a low level FF7 playthrough, this guy is always a wall:

 

[Bladenic]

Here is another one. If you're trying to do a low level FF7 playthrough, this guy is always a wall:

Is that Carry Armor? I just fought him not long ago and he wasn't that hard at all... But then I had like no trouble with Demon Wall either.

 

[ffdgh]

Here is another one. If you're trying to do a low level FF7 playthrough, this guy is always a wall:

http://images.wikia.com/finalfantasy/images/6/60/Carry_armor.png[IMG][/QUOTE]

God that thing was a pain

 

[Razek]

Is that Carry Armor? I just fought him not long ago and he wasn't that hard at all... But then I had like no trouble with Demon Wall either.

Yep, it is. The problem I always had is if you run an extremely low level game his lapis laser does enough damage to one shot your entire party before you even get a turn.

 

[Little Green Yoda]

This asshole:

It doesn't help that the rest of the game is a cakewalk so I was horribly underleveled for this fight.

 

[Dahbomb]

The first boss in Secret of Mana was a crazy difficulty spike.

 

[jbueno]

Baten Kaitos Origins. FUCKING HOLOHOLO BIRD ARGH.

Right after disc change too, so no chance to go back and grind if you only kept one save. Fucker gave me nightmares.

 

[ZacharyDCCLXXVII]

I remember Secret of Mana being a cakewalk, until I stumbled into this boss battle.

Couldn't really figure out the best thing to do, so I just leveled up Gem Missile a crazy amount, jumped back in, and spammed the living shit out of it to stall and kill him.

 

[Acquiescence]

Here is another one. If you're trying to do a low level FF7 playthrough, this guy is always a wall:

That thing was a pain, but it was small fry compared to the mother of all Final Fantasy difficulty spikes Demons Gate. If you're not prepared, that thing will annihilate you time and time again. My first playthrough of VII, I was at my wits end trying to beat him.

 

[ExitPlanetDust]

Assault Suit Leynos 2's dreaded escort mission.

 

[Cloudius12]

Yeah this is a pain in the mf ass to do first time. After playing the game about 10 times I do it no problem now.

Also this difficulty spike in GoW 3 on Chaos (Very Hard) Mode. Took me like 9 hours over 2 days to beat...

Haha, that was a great fight. Hell of a difficulty spike. I recall the rock-scorpion boss being tough too.

Yep, and I'm still salty Chaos difficulty wasn't linked to achievements at all.

 

[Silly.Mikey]

Any COD game at Veteran.

 

[Toppot]

Yep, and I'm still salty Chaos difficulty wasn't linked to achievements at all.

I'm salty about that as well, but I'm even more salty that we didn't get any cool funny costumes for Kratos for beating Chaos mode. Fine, don't give me a trophy for Chaos mode but give me some cool unlockables!

 

[Deified Data]

Put me in the "Matador's not that hard" camp. I beat him on my first try by abusing Fog Breath. This is a tough game, but Matador is not the biggest difficulty spike I can think of.

 

[DukeBobby]

Not really a difficulty spike (the whole game is bloody difficult!!) but I didn't have too many problems until I had to fight this guy.

Oh, and the game is Viewtiful Joe (for anybody wondering).

 

[PetriP-TNT]

Dark souls, the game starts normal enough, just walking through Ruins a la uncharted, then you are dropped in front a huge monster with no weapons.

My first time playing I didnt know there was

Spoiler

a door you could escape through

, I almost gave up on the game.

Its like turning the volume from 1 to 11 in a second.

The real difficulty spike in Dark Souls is Sen's Fortress. I bet those first two enemies beat the shit out of most of the DS new players on the first try.


That Cerberus thing is the only reason I don't have a platinum from GoW3. It's pure bullshit.

 

[ghibli99]

Straight up the ass.

Somehow the picture/caption combo almost made me spit out my lunch. Well done!

 

[Jotamide]

Level 10 of the 1st world in BIT.TRIP RUNNER is the worst offender. After I beat it, I just couldn't play that game anymore.

Not really a difficulty spike (the whole game is bloody difficult!!) but I didn't have too many problems until I had to fight this guy.

Oh, and the game is Viewtiful Joe (for anybody wondering).

Oh god the

Spoiler

awful

memories :')

 

[The Hermit]

The meat circus in Psychonauts. It was such a fun game to play up to that point, then it became a platforming nightmare.

first post never disappoints...

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Some of these ain't difficulty spikes, they're the far edges of ease chasms.

Yeah, but you only had 70 lvls to do, and lvling wasn't as ridiculously easy as it is right now from what i remember. The lack of group quests and tough elites nowadays doesn't help. And Cataclysm heroics happened right after people got used to the (also) ridiculously easy WOTLK heroics.

All of this made the spike in difficulty a little more painful than back in BC days! No wonder we had DPS queues that lasted 40-45 mins back then, when it was 10-12 mins in WOTLK.

The eyes open and the mind sees clearly once more.

 

[Astral]

Devil May Cry 3 has several difficulty spikes the first time you play it. The first 2 missions aren't so bad, but then the game kicks your ass in only the 3rd mission:

In the 4th mission it takes it easy on you. In the 5th mission however...

Two fucking bosses at once.

And of course one mission later you get this guy:

The game alternates between easy missions and hard ones for quite a bit. It gets easier closer to the end though.

 

[Melchiah]

Fuck this

and this

I was very close to give up on playing Dead Space during the first one, but the second was the last straw. And the reason why I never bought the sequel. Now that it came available through PS+, I've found it somewhat entertaining on easy difficulty. Hopefully there'll be no space shooter mini-games ahead.

As for God of War III, it took me at least a dozen times to get through the music mini-game, and it's the sole reason why I never finished my second playthrough.

 

[AwakenedCloud]

This is my most recent roadblock. She summons her "prince" after a couple turns and they proceed to relentlessly assualt your team.
After you kill her little helper she starts dropping firebombs on your entire team, at least taking 50% of their health. What makes it worse is the attack can knock down a party member and she can use it twice in a row.

I'm probably underleveled, but that was just mean.

 

[The Last Wizard]

Dragons Dogma, after coming back from

Spoiler

killing the dragon.

it was a challenge just to make it to gran Soren.

 

[buddha0991]

Put me in the "Matador's not that hard" camp. I beat him on my first try by abusing Fog Breath. This is a tough game, but Matador is not the biggest difficulty spike I can think of.

Was it your first SMT game?

 

[VandalD]

Better spikes have already been named, and all I can come up with right now is the first boss in Ninja Gaiden. He taught you that the game isn't fucking around, so you can't either. Other bosses or events in the game (the guys on horses) could also probably apply, but the game was just tough in general for a first time player.

Couldn't really figure out the best thing to do, so I just leveled up Gem Missile a crazy amount, jumped back in, and spammed the living shit out of it to stall and kill him.

That's pretty much what ruins Secret of Mana. The game might as well be a turn-based RPG with the amount of crap bosses throw at you that you can't avoid with movement. Best bet is to grind up the sprite's magic so you can spam the bosses to death before they do the same to you.

 

[spons]

Gearheads in Rage. Was feasible but on a different level than the rest of the game, even with what came after it.

 

[Deified Data]

Will your charge choose to move towards the enemy and die, or away from the enemy and live? Luck of the draw.

 

[bwahhhhh]

Straight up the ass.

that's probably the most recent one that I can remember.

final boss in Wonder Boy in Monster World US Genesis version, with added buzz-saws in the floor. game wasn't hard at all until him. he might not have been so bad if every time you died, you'd just start right at the beginning of the battle.

granted, I haven't fought him in over 15 years, but I remember it to this day. I beat him and then said "never again."

 

[Angry Grimace]

Wiegraf.

The reason why it was so ball-busting was that you were given the opportunity to save in between the previous fight and fight with Wiegraf, but if you save there, you can't do anything but fight Wiegraf and there's a massive difficulty spike due to the uniqueness of the Wiegraf encounter. The encounter will actually ruin your save file if you didn't keep backups since it can literally be unbeatable if you don't have specialized jobs or equipment ready for the fight.

 

[Razek]

The real difficulty spike in Dark Souls is Sen's Fortress. I bet those first two enemies beat the shit out of most of the DS new players on the first try.

Yep

I played shield/spear for my first game and all was going okay until you get to the 2 serpents that have 8x the HP and 3x the strength of all the other enemies you faced thus far. Another moment of "How is my character ever supposed to beat this" happens when you first get to the demon ruins. Fighting bosses as normal enemies, really?

 

[TwiztidElf]

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit.

Difficulty spike at the end with a choice of grinding or a soft pay wall? In a retail release? Seriously?
I expect paywalls in free iOS games. Not in retail releases.
Never again EA/Criterion. Never again.

 

[Angry Grimace]

and (maybe just for me)

 

[Modedude]

The final boss in The Last Story feels like a serious brick wall in comparison to fights previous to it.

 

[Little Old Man]

Not quite a difficulty spike, more enemy spam, but the starting area of the ship yard level in Uncharted 3. Enemies, enemies everywhere, very little ammo and they attack from all sides.

 

[Riposte]

Not quite a difficulty spike, more enemy spam, but the starting area of the ship yard level in Uncharted 3. Enemies, enemies everywhere, very little ammo and they attack from all sides.

This sequence justifies all the combat in the entire Uncharted franchise. Great level.

 

[Damian.]

and

 

[Polishin8r]

Not quite a difficulty spike, more enemy spam, but the starting area of the ship yard level in Uncharted 3. Enemies, enemies everywhere, very little ammo and they attack from all sides.

^ this one was a bastard of a level in a good way

 

[OatmealMu]

Psi enemies in X-COM.

I knew they were coming, but I had no idea how bad it would be. They can cause your soldiers to panic, go beserk or even turn on themselves. And unless you put your soldiers into a Psi Lab for a month, you'll have no idea who's resistant to psi attacks. Oh, and in order to even build a Psi Lab, you'll need to capture someone who can use psi attacks. All you can do is put together a ragtag group of lunatics who may or may not be easily manipulated and charge forward! Just keep an eye on the guy with the rocket launcher.

X-COM, baby!

 

[llehuty]

This

and this

Spoiler

Somebody thought it was a good idea to put two of this, without healing between them.

Quite desperating the begining of the game, without the "save your ass" habilities

I still don't get why all JRPG need some kind of petrifying mechanic... IT'S NOT FUN.

 

[injurai]

 

[Little Old Man]

^ this one was a bastard of a level in a good way

The second half was fine, climb right up decaying ships, guys popping out, onto the floating docks in the choppy waters. That first bit though....you can tell there was little time for fine tuning and tweaking the game during development.

 

[BurnOutBrighter]

Yeah this is a pain in the mf ass to do first time. After playing the game about 10 times I do it no problem now.

Also this difficulty spike in GoW 3 on Chaos (Very Hard) Mode. Took me like 9 hours over 2 days to beat...

I still loved this fight, even though it requires perfect execution and use of the right powers at the right times. The main trick is to hit and run, and chip damage everyone to death.

 

[BurnOutBrighter]

Goddamn Darksiders.

Average difficulty hacky-slashy adventure and then suddenly Tiamat and then suddenly I'm never playing that game again.

Took me a while to nail the dodge timing, but I felt like a badass afterward.