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Difficulty Spikes in Video Games

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This guy....this fucking guy. The reason I stopped playing the game.
 
The mech boss in Fear 3 interval 5.

Holy shit what a spike.

Fairly easy game up until that part and after that part. Just out of nowhere comes this boss that takes an ungodly amount of damage. I think i used more ammo on that mech than i used on every enemy up to that point in the game, combined.
 
That boss in Diablo 2. I think its name was Duriel. The giant hydralisk looking guy and he moves so fast. Boss on Act 1 is ok but this boss in Act 2 is really tough. I was playing single player on my first playthrough so I couldnt get help.
 
Darksiders angel fight with Ulthane.

So many of them just shooting me from miles away
 
That boss in Diablo 2. I think its name was Duriel. The giant hydralisk looking guy and he moves so fast. Boss on Act 1 is ok but this boss in Act 2 is really tough. I was playing single player on my first playthrough so I couldnt get help.

Came across Duriel a week ago when I was playing D2. Unbelievable difficulty spike there, was having a fairly easy time up til then and suddenly found myself getting absolutely annihilated.

I'd like to nominate the Flame Tank in the original Command & Conquer. As soon as this vehicle appeared in the game and took out all your infantry instantly, it was time to get serious with strategising.
 
Xenosaga - Song of Nephalim.

At the time I remember sleepwalking through most of the game then just the final area with regular field enemies was a slog then two bosses back to back the second of which has a spell that can potentially wipe your whole party. Ergh.

Had to go back grind for hours and respec my party just for that fight.
 
Uncharted 3.

There was a few parts where the difficulty spiked for no reason, and it was complete bullshit. The desert area where you fight the tanks or whatever they were especially.
 
Donkey Kong Country 2: Animal Antics.

This level is the most brutal of the original trilogy. It has you cycle through every animal form, and is especially difficult at the part in which you play as Squawks. His section takes place in brambles (which kill in a single touch) and is filled with enemies and has gusts of wind that change directions.
 
Valkyria Chronicles Chapter 7 rockets to mind.

This mission is absurdly easy once you know what to do. I found myself having murdered everyone other than Selvaria, who I was out of range from, and just having to wait for the tank to shoot out walls so I could finish it off.
 
Donkey Kong Country 2: Animal Antics.

This level is the most brutal of the original trilogy. It has you cycle through every animal form, and is especially difficult at the part in which you play as Squawks. His section takes place in brambles (which kill in a single touch) and is filled with enemies and has gusts of wind that change directions.

I recall the GBA version being easier, but yes, this. I had everything else in DKC 2. Every DK Coin, every level beat. Except this.
 
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The kid levels from super meat boy. All the character warp zones before this ones are easy so you think this one is going to be simple as well... Whereas in fact it's made up of the three hardest levels in the game.
 
First Black Knight encounter at Undead Burg in Dark Souls.
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I thought the combat in this game was unforgiving fast and brutal. But then this guy just taunted me with his back turned. 60 odd deaths later I have a little bit of titanite shard as a reward.

It was just insane. He is so fast and does so much damage.
 
Super Mario Land 2, the final level/boss. The rest of the game is pretty easy, but once I got to the final level, for some reason I just couldn't beat it. I rarely got to the end boss, but if not before, I failed there. A huge spike in the difficulty.

I came to post this. I recently replayed Super Mario Land 2 on the 3ds VC. There is indeed a sharp contrast between the difficulty level of the final stage and the balance of the game.
 
Yeah okay, Ninja Gaiden is a hard-as-fuck game to begin with, but it went to a whole 'nother level when this fucking horrible thing smashed through the windows.

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Megaman 1:

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Wily Stage 1. It's hard to pick out a defining moment of what makes this game so hard (the end of Ice Man's stage and the drop-platforms on Guts Man's stage come to mind), but this stage is a big hairy monster. It requires careful management of weapon power. There is a huge room that must be traversed on the tops of those propeller-nosed guys who may or may not decide to lift you into or drop you helplessly down to the spikes that line said room. For good measure, the game tells you to go fuck yourself if you didn't get the magnet beam from Elec Man's stage. And the Yellow Devil is by far the hardest boss in the game, especially if you used up your Guts Man early in the stage, and therefore wasted precious Elec Beams to clear blocks.

IIRC, he only have two different patterns when he dis-/reassembles (one from the left and one from the right). Once you figure out how to avoid the blocks from both directions, he's actually pretty easy to beat without taking damage (even with the Mega Buster).
 
Valkyria Chronicles Chapter 7 rockets to mind.

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This monstrosity turns up leading to a mission where you must slowly take it down while also avoiding its firepower and ability to flat out crush you, how well you succeed partly depends on if your Lancer units are feeling accurate or not and at this early point in the game expect a lot of buggering up from their inaccurate abilities.

Still you'll slowly get there, yep, maybe it's not so bad after all....

And then Selvaria makes her in battle debut, oh gee whiz! just what this mission needed, an invincible superwoman!

Yup that is what I had in mind.

Valkyria Chronicles 2 was just as bad with TWO very evil levels with insane difficulty spikes.

Evil Level 1 -
The March main mission

Evil Level 2 -
The invasion of Lanseal, with those evil man-made Valkyria killing you so fast. Didn't help that the damn stage has them all over the place
 
The bosses at Phynal Floor 5 in Star Ocean 2 are harder than every single boss before them by a huge margin. It's possible and likely you will die within the first 10 seconds of the fight.
 
Most of the ones Ive played recently have been mentioned, so I will toss the Kaos fight from Skylanders out there. Ive been playing this game with my 6yr old nephew and it is very easy and fun switching out the different characters looking for all the collectibles in each chapter. Each chapter has a few easy puzzles to solve and enemies that arent tough especially if you are leveled up with your skills.

You get the Kaos fight and it is a 30 minute fight that uses a lot of bullet hell game play elements. The biggest problem is the characters dont move with precision required in bullet hell games and are clumsy when trying to dodge things. You have to switch out characters constantly when your characters die and then he regens back to full health when you get him around 30 percent. They basically put him in the game to get you to buy more toys, so you have backups for the inevitable deaths you will have. I have enjoyed playing the game with my nephew overall, but the last boss is garbage. Even when I play by myself without my nephew, he has been tougher to beat than most bosses in both Dark/Demon Souls.
 
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.

Beat me to it! I hated that part! I was having a great time with the game and then just hit a wall at that section. When it came up for the second time I nearly quit.
 
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wasn't too hard until she appeared.....

Oh goddddddddddddddddddddd. One of my favourite games of all time! But when I got to her I actually rage quit the game. Wasn't for another 1-2 years till I went back and actually beat her. Getting out of that dungeon, getting supplies, and getting back in was a royal pain in the ass too.
 
The difficult spike room in God of War. The one where you'll have to push a box in front of a ledge and jump on it before spikes raise from the ground.
 
Beat me to it! I hated that part! I was having a great time with the game and then just hit a wall at that section. When it came up for the second time I nearly quit.

Yeah, I hate it when all of a sudden there's a section in the game, that involves completely different playing mechanics, and often ends up being a huge barrier to progress. Those should be at least skippable after a certain amount of tries.
 
The original Far Cry had some crazy difficulty spikes, especially near the end where you get dropped with a gun with like 10 bullets on an island crawling with trigens.
 
It would be nice if people wrote the name of the game instead of just posting an image without any descriptions. Remember, not anyone has played every game!



My choice is this jump in the Strom Drain level from Mirror's Edge. Every time I replay the game I always have to play that part between 10 to 20 times, perhaps a little more. I never found the correct way to do it, so I just try time and time again until I get lucky and manage to grab onto the rail. I REALLY hate that horrible jump!
 
My favorite ridiculous difficulty spike was in Star Ocean 3.

You fight a couple of bosses that you barely beat and they completely destroys your ass. Then two seconds later, these bosses become the regular enemies in the game, except they come in groups and they are fucking everywhere.
 
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The kid levels from super meat boy. All the character warp zones before this ones are easy so you think this one is going to be simple as well... Whereas in fact it's made up of the three hardest levels in the game.

I FINALLY beat these after having the damn game sine launch, I have never felt so accomplished in a videogame in a long, long time! Now at 97% completion, so close, yet so far...
 
Killzone 2 boss fights gave me a lot of trouble (some of them at least)

I gave up during the Radec fight after several futile attempts, as a tiresome repetition isn't really what I'd call fun. I decided to play the game again a couple of months ago, as I had never played it on a HDTV, this time on easy difficulty, and the fight was far more tolerable that way.
 
Never, EVER got the "Alma is too hard!" criticisms. She's not that hard either time.

I would say that she's the first boss that poses far more trouble than usual, but Spirit Doku is the one who gets ALL OF MY RAGE!

Yup that is what I had in mind.

Valkyria Chronicles 2 was just as bad with TWO very evil levels with insane difficulty spikes.

Evil Level 1 -
The March main mission

Evil Level 2 -
The invasion of Lanseal, with those evil man-made Valkyria killing you so fast. Didn't help that the damn stage has them all over the place

The Lanseal Invasion was tense stuff, I managed to get by it on my first try but it was big step up from anything earlier, pretty fun as well in a terrifying way.
 
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This guy from Tales of Vesperia. Made all the more vexing because:

A.) He's the boss at the end of the demo despite him being in the top three hardest enemies in the game
B.) After beating him, Karol immediately pipes up claiming it was a super easy fight
 
The worst game is Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure.

The game is really fun until you got to the nurse boss fight. If you're lucky and get past that the platforming in the next level is impossible. I was never able to finish the game.
 
I know this thread may bot be the place... but I am baffled by the amount of Uncharted 3 in the thread! Really? There were some slightly harder moments, but really, difficulty spikes? I think of these as sudden, semi-impossible moments in an otherwise doable game.

Uncharted 3 may have had some sections that were more difficult than others, but calling them difficulty spikes sounds vastly exaggerated.
 
Valkyria Chronicles Chapter 7 rockets to mind.

http://i.imgur.com/laLLu.png[IMG]
This monstrosity turns up leading to a mission where you must slowly take it down while also avoiding its firepower and ability to flat out crush you, how well you succeed partly depends on if your Lancer units are feeling accurate or not and at this early point in the game expect a lot of buggering up from their inaccurate abilities.

Still you'll slowly get there, yep, maybe it's not so bad after all....

And then Selvaria makes her in battle debut, oh gee whiz! just what this mission needed, an invincible superwoman![/QUOTE]

Hrm, I thought it was just me. I don't think I touched the game for a year after getting past this.
 
There are two moments in Dark Souls that really stand out in my mind in terms of difficulty, relative to the rest of the game. And both take place in Anor Londo. You can probably guess what I'm talking about. 

1) the archers on the rooftops. You have to walk on some narrow beams while undead archers shoot giant arrows at you. One hit and they knock you off and you fall to your death. Took me about 50 tries to clear. 

2) Smough and Ornstein, by far the hardest boss in the game. Took me one week to kill these fuckers. I'd get so frustrated that I had to put the controller down after 2 or 3 tries each time and then try again later.  Up to that point I'd been able to down most bosses in 3 or 4 tries. 

Interestingly, I never had problems with the game after that. I was playing a sorcery based character and the crystal spells you can get in The Duke's Archives are so overpowered that the game was a breeze after that. Basically 3 shotted the final boss on the first try. 

First Black Knight encounter at Undead Burg in Dark Souls.
I thought the combat in this game was unforgiving fast and brutal. But then this guy just taunted me with his back turned. 60 odd deaths later I have a little bit of titanite shard as a reward.

It was just insane. He is so fast and does so much damage.

Fortunately, killing this guy is optional. He'd one shoot my sorcerer. I only killed him after I'd cleared the hall below the tower and was able to cheese him to death by kitting.
 
Been playing through Goldeneye Reloaded the last couple of days and was finding it a breeze until I reached the protecting Natalya part and then traversing the cradle. What an unfair piece of shit!!
 
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Force to fight alone...fml.
This was the very first event that came to mind. I had to start my game over because of him (and my poor choice of saves). When I got to him the second time, I had made sure I had grinded a TON. He wasn't even easy after that, but at least he was beatable.
 
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