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"This just got real" moments/difficulty spikes in games

Bane in Arkham Origins is actually a pretty tough fight the first go around. Origins nailed him being a force of nature and a true threat to Batman.
 
The Bell Gargoyles are a way better example. Ornstein and Smough are hard but you know what to expect by that point. The game isn't a cakewalk by any means before the gargoyles but man, when that second one drops down, definitely a "Holy shit" moment. The first time I played the game I thought I was triggering the second one by walking too far into the area you fight them, and that staying near the entrance until you killed the first one was the trick. When I saw the second one dive down when the first hit half health and realized I had to fight them both it was crazy, probably the most memorable moment of the entire series for me.
For some reason, I can take on Capra Demon, Queelag, O&A and whatever in a new playthrough, but I always will find Bell Gargoyles very, very hard. That damn fight is so unfair, at least you didn't have to worry about falling against the Super Londo Bros.
 
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Game was piss easy up to this point.
 
Just got past this today after a few days of being stuck in Trails in the Sky 3rd, chapter 6 spoilers:

The fight with Cassius Bright. Wow. He is no pushover, as expected.
 
Twin Gargoyles in Dark Souls. That entire area and boss made me go "Yeah this is actually pretty difficult."

Medusa in Shin Megami Tensei IV, and the Chinese Empress boss whose name I forget later on. Ji Xangmu or something? She was a real bitch.

Kilrogg Deadeye and Gorefiend in the Hellfire Citadel raid in WoW. The first four bosses are really easy but you get to them and its like a brick wall. Gorefiend was particularly notorious as a guild breaking boss who was difficult enough to make guilds break up. Xhul'horac after them are even worse. WoW has quite a few other examples, not counting the last boss of a raid who are 95% of the time the most difficult - Vaelastrasz in Blackwing Lair, M'uru in Sunwell Plateau, Twin Emperors in Temple of Ahn'Qiraj

Cackletta in Mario and Luigi SuperStar Saga. First boss I had some real trouble with.
 
Yeah I don't know what that guy is smoking, Jetstream Sam is easy compared to Monsoon.
Monsoon made me legitimately question if I was good at video gaming, or the game was just on some hyper level shit I wasn't ready for.... So of course I had to beat him and continue on to beat the game entirely.

Took me three days to beat Armstrong and oh was Killer Jack pleased.
 
Monsoon made me legitimately question if I was good at video gaming, or the game was just on some hyper level shit I wasn't ready for.... So of course I had to beat him and continue on to beat the game entirely.

Took me three days to beat Armstrong and oh was Killer Jack pleased.

are you playing on very hard or something
or did you find a way to beat the first boss without learning parrying
 
Path of Radiance chapter 8.

Such a wonderful turning point in the game. The missions before were quite easy and then you have to hold the fort with very few numbers.

Defense missions in Fire Emblem are always kinda tough. There are secondary objectives and doing both leaves you wide open.
 
I know a lot of people that had trouble with Seymour Flux and Yunalesca in FFX. I cheese both fights with Trio of 9999 myself :D
 
Been playing through the Final Fantasy games lately as a retrospective, just beat FF 3. I wanted to get the most authentic experience, so I played a repro cart on NES translated from the original JP famicom version and my fucking god, the difficulty spike for the last dungeon.

Was able to play through the entire game doing whatever I wanted (except for Garuda, needed to cheat with Dragoons). Never even a chance to lose. I get to the last dungeon, and the first (of 6 total) boss literally one shots my entire party on the first turn before I could take a single action with Meteo. And that boss was followed by 4 harder mini bosses and a hard final boss, none of which I could save or recover MP between. I've never played a game where you could end one dungeon easily killing the boss only to move on to the next one where the boss one shot your entire party on the first turn with an AoE before hah.

To be fair, like everything else in old school RPGs, grinding some levels and class changing to an OP combination ensured victory, but man that difficulty spike out of nowhere.
 
Nameless King in Dark Souls 3. Hardest boss in the game (excluding DLC) and you can get there before you face Yhorm, who is Fisher Price in comparison.
That's unlikely to happen on a first playthrough, because
most people will kill Yhorm before the Dancer and you need to kill the Dancer to get the gesture to reach Archdragon Peak
...

To me, the "shit just got real" moment in DS3 was the Abyss Watchers. I went there before the Cathedral and was somewhat underlevelled, and boy was it rough.

Thunderjaw on Hard in Horizon Zero Dawn.
Oh, good one. I tried one for a bit and went NOPE, had to come back with better weapons/mods later hah. Same with the Stormbird.
 
Father G had me sweating at the beginning of the game, he really forced me to adapt to Bloodborne's mechanics.

When I saw him starting to smash tombstones, your only lifeline to relative safety from his aggression, in his second phase, I got so fucking nervous I almost dropped the controller.
 
Such a fantastic Metroidvania. I still place it higher than SOTN on my GOAT games list.

And then it turns into Super Meat Boy.

This. I expected the game to be hard but my word. It starts off easy then it just rockets up the difficulty exponentially with every new ability but even then it has some major difficulty spikes in between.
 
Smough and Ornstein in Dark Souls is a great shout - hardest part of the game for me.

Father G in Bloodborne also.

I would vote for the underwater section in Operation Stealth after you escape the cave. Everything up to then is manageable and like a graphic adventure, The swimming and the maze sections - jesus that's tough.
 
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You guys seem to be enjoying this Valkyria Chronicles game, it'd be a shame if a sudden difficulty spike at Chapter 7 ruined it for half of the players complete with your inaccurate lancers flubbing their vital shots and an almost trial and error style progression.

And just when you finally think you've got it under control, the game's resident invincible super woman comes in because obviously the giant tank just wasn't enough.

Hollow Knight. What a masterpiece.

I just want to say, fuck those teleporting enemies in the soul sanctum.
 
He really was intense for only the second boss. Same goes with the Capra Demon from Dark Souls 1. Being bum rushed by him and two dogs in an enclosed space as soon as you walk through the boss gate.
The funny thing is, Gascoigne is technically the first since Cleric Beast is optional.

God help the poor souls who fought Gascoigne first.
 
The final level in Rayman Origins, land of the livid dead. The game was tough but quite doable up until that point but holy shit that level almost broke myself and my wife.

It took us at least a few hundred tries to memorize each and every little nuance of that level and it felt so damn cathartic when we finally beat it. The near instant respawn after each death helped it to not be so frustrating as I don't know if we could've beaten it with long load times like Crash remastered.

Also need to give a shout out to champion's road from 3d world that was also much more difficult then the rest of the game.
 
Crap I forgot the Alma fight from Ninja Gaiden Black as well as a later part of GOW 2 where you're escaping from hades (I think)

I actually broke a third party ps3 controller after throwing it upon yet another death with one of the spike puzzles in hades.
 
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Cerberus from DMC3 was hilarious

Cmon guys, none of Revengeance was even close to "shit just got real". You just pick things up naturally and you shove your sword down their throats.


The first time I fought Armstrong was cool though
 
Ori and the Blind Forest Pre-Ginso Tree Escape: A fun and relaxing metroidvania with forgiving platforming and very easy combat.

Ginso Tree Escape: Fuck you, hope you mastered the Bash skill

The Ginso Tree and later, similar escape sequences definitely made me dislike that game so much more.

The first one that came to mind from me was Phantom in the first Devil May Cry. That was the moment that took me from, "Hey, I'm pretty good at this game!" to "Oh my god, I have no idea what I'm doing!" and taught me the value of tells and pattern recognition.
 
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Tigrex from Monster Hunter Freedom 2/monster Hunter Freedom Unite. Tigrex is the first major challenge you face in the game and it hits like a freight train. It has a fairly simplistic moveset but it's strength means that a single hit can take off over half your HP and when it's enraged it becomes so fast that it can easily combo you to death. It's a shame that they removed it's fangs in the later games and turned it into a joke.
 
Hino-Enma in Nioh. Everything else was a cakewalk up until that point, but she was a huge difficulty spike with that paralysis effect and that stupid tornado dash that's almost impossible to dodge if you're close to her.

I had to look up how to beat her. Alma tier brick wall difficulty spike for sure
 
No he wasn't. I don't blame you for blanking on everything before him though, considering how much harder he was than anything in the preceding three levels. Great example.
I promise you I have gotten to Cerberus around that time. Maybe 10 minutes.

That doesn't preclude him from being the mother of all skill checks for new players though.
I suppose so. I figured it would be Agni and Rudra that would be the difficulty spike.
 
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Cerberus from DMC3 was hilarious

Cmon guys, none of Revengeance was even close to "shit just got real". You just pick things up naturally and you shove your sword down their throats.


The first time I fought Armstrong was cool though

first revengeance boss is made to be a skill check boss rather than a shit just got real boss, but it IS if you don't parry like you should

like imagine beating a DS boss without rolling at ALL
 
Super Metroid - Mother Brain killed the baby. Samus got pissed.

Halo 3 - Finally going to rescue Cortana from the Flood. I'm coming for you, virtual girlfriend!
 
There's a few in Undertale, but "The Heroine Appeared" in the evil route probably takes the cake for me. Couldn't finish that fight, both on a difficulty and thematic level.

This is a good one. Definitely an "OH SHIT" moment for me. Up to that point I had only died a couple times in the neutral and good playthroughs, and those were mostly due to carelessness.
 
Vampire the masquerade bloodlines. To be fair I put bloodlines in there

Got it. My brain was like "Bloodlines...Castlevania... NO that's a Genesis game...right? Yes! Is it? WTF is Bloodlines?!"

I've yet to play those games. I've wanted to buy that for my wife for some time, but I just can't pull the trigger.
 
"You're blue now" in Undertale.

Silly fight with a wacky character in the early parts of the game, as he raves about his looming special attack while you barely have to exert effort in the actual fight. His special attack comes, and... your heart is blue. Wow, great job there, Pap-- wait, why am I getting hit? I'm affected by gravity now?

And then the drums in the song kick in, which is a great touch as it sets in that this is actually going to be a fight.
 
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