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Top Ten Harshest Difficulty Curves in Video Games
- Thread starter wildfire
- Start date
Okay. It is just another "palace" except it is divided up by overworld areas. It prepares you for how hard the game is going to get later on. It is more forgiving than all of the palaces beyond the second from what I remember, as the broken bits of overworld at least give you a sense of the progress you are making. If it feels like you're going in the wrong direction in the overworld, you can just turn around and go another way, or just go a different way later if you lose all your lives. Yeah, some of the red wolves are in pretty bullshit spots, but you also have spells to take advantage of. It's difficult, but not a more harsh curve or spike than Turbo Tunnel, or pretty much anything else on that list, really.
How is Labyrinth Zone part of a harsh difficulty curve, or even a difficulty spike? It's one of the last levels in the game. His justification seems to be that the game makes you move slow, and it's not fast, and that's not Sonic. So how is that hard? Maybe it's hard if you're extremely impatient and don't wait for air bubbles. Sonic wasn't about speed anyway. That was just to draw people in. It was about momentum and platforming in the old games.
The entire list could've been F-Zero GX. That game is hardcore.
thoseAREmySHOES
Member
Deadbeard in Golden Sun was a real slap in the face. If you knew how to prepare, he wasn't so bad. But man, he really came out of nowhere.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzXMVHiEysQ
EDIT: Also, I thought Bowser in Paper Mario (N64) was quite the difficulty spike, but as for the curve of the game, it wasn't bad at all. You know a boss fight is crazy when you max out your character to the level cap and it STILL takes a good amount of time to take him out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzXMVHiEysQ
EDIT: Also, I thought Bowser in Paper Mario (N64) was quite the difficulty spike, but as for the curve of the game, it wasn't bad at all. You know a boss fight is crazy when you max out your character to the level cap and it STILL takes a good amount of time to take him out.
Mr. Wedgewood
Member
Sonic 3, game flowed pretty well then you reach this
MichaelFassbender
Member
Dullahan in GS2 was FAR worse. I couldn't beat him without looking up a very specific order of summons. Everything else was child's play compared to that asshole.
Shining Sunshine
Banned
As many stated, have they not played this?
Tribes 1 had the harshest difficulty curve I've ever experienced. To go from standard FPS movement to moving with jetpacks while shooting people was bad enough, but by the time I started up 'skiing' - a method for moving faster than originally intended - was developed by the player-base. I was basically a sitting duck with people zooming around me at breakneck speeds from all 3 dimensions. Took a while to get the hang and actually be able to do stuff other than die every 2 seconds, but was well worth it.
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
I don't think Dark Souls belongs on any such list. The difficulty curve is usually consistent and evolving. Most new players struggle with Taurus, then finally overcome the challenge, only to get stumped at the Gargoyles or Capra. Then they finally get through those, and hit a wall at Blighttown or Sen's, and just when they think things are going well, bam, Anor Londo archers and S&O. Oh you made it all the way through those? Hello, 4 Kings and the DLC bosses. 
My point is, the challenges are usually well spread out and consistent.
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, on the other hand? The whole game is fairly easy, but then you reach Bitterblack Isle with your end-game gear, and... ouch. Starts out OK then fucking
shows up and annihilates your party and you have to run like a little bitch. Then you see a chained Gorecyclops and think "this shouldn't be so bad, cyclops weren't that hard in the normal game after all" and then you see he has like eleventy HP bars and you're barely scratching him and he 2HKOs you. Ouch, time to run away again.
Compared to the vanilla game, the spike is rather abrupt, though pleasantly surprising, I didn't expect this difficulty spike. Really motivated me to hunt for better gear and use my buffing items that I kept hoarding for "that one boss" that never came. xD
Oh, also, the Gazer in Dragon's Crown. I was breezing through the entire game until I faced that one, and ouch, first time I actually ran out of lives. He's not so bad now that I know his pattern, but he was way harder than the previous bosses before him.
My point is, the challenges are usually well spread out and consistent.Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, on the other hand? The whole game is fairly easy, but then you reach Bitterblack Isle with your end-game gear, and... ouch. Starts out OK then fucking
Death
Compared to the vanilla game, the spike is rather abrupt, though pleasantly surprising, I didn't expect this difficulty spike. Really motivated me to hunt for better gear and use my buffing items that I kept hoarding for "that one boss" that never came. xD
Oh, also, the Gazer in Dragon's Crown. I was breezing through the entire game until I faced that one, and ouch, first time I actually ran out of lives. He's not so bad now that I know his pattern, but he was way harder than the previous bosses before him.
Conciliator
Banned
the video is extremely cheesy but there are some funny memories in there.
SparkleMotion
Member
I never beat Psychonauts because of Meat Circus. It should be way higher on that list.
Quadraphonic
Member
I'm pretty sure Transformers on the PS2 should be somewhere on that list. After the first level, the game becomes laughably difficult unless you spend all your time hunting down the Mini-cons.
Incendiary
Banned
I never had as much trouble with Turbo Tunnel as I did with Clinger Winger. Fuck Clinger Winger.
Buddha Beam
Banned
God Hand absolutely deserves a mention on this list. Although it's hard as hell from right off the bat, so maybe it's not really a difficulty curve.
Turbo Tunnel is actually pretty easy.
Clinger Winger on the other hand I just don't understand what is it that I'm doing wrong.
List is invalid because Dwarf Fortress exists.
The fuck? Dwarf Fortress doesn't have that steep of a learning curve. And StarCraft being that low? lol. Shit's worse than Dwarf Fortress.
That's a shitty version of the original comic. Original had EVE, which is pretty accurate.
Edit:
As many stated, have they not played this?
Yeah, this one. Goddamned EVE.
Nah I just found the person as a kid.
Also I have actually beaten her without the Machop. She's not hard.
Coolio McAwesome
Member
Level 1-3 in Kid Icarus on the NES is harshest difficulty spike I can ever recall. If you don't understand how the ambiguous endurance challenges, secret chambers, and levelling up work, 1-3 will destroy you.
Bill Rizer
Member
Are we counting multiplayer games? In that case: WarHawk. You would have been wiped out in a blink for a thousand times before even capacitating what were going on. And if you thought the aircraft could lend you a hand, well you just had to try to *take off* for nice fireworks
of you being brutally annihilated from a slew of missiles/bombs/whatever
Bornstellar
Member
No Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow MP?
List invalidated.
List invalidated.
LIES!
Riposte
Member
Well, if I'm right, Awakening is also hardest at the start on the higher difficulties.
I think it is right around chapter 5 where shit hits the fan.
That game is a lot of fun/cruelty if you try to rebel.
I think that level is hard to play on emulators or something, I couldn't do it. Rat Race was also a bitch. Turbo Tunnel is pretty easy because half of the time I mess up I end up hitting the world warp lol.
Dota 2 probably has the highest curve of games that I play.
Elaugaufein
Member
Ilúvatar;95183557 said:
Concur on Whitney. It's not that she was hard objectively it's that she defies expectations for her Gym typing.
In the original Gold/Silver games her Miltank knew Rollout (a move which you wouldn't have encountered before since it was her TM which turns out to be Rock type), which would flatten the ghost type you were using, and then build in power and steam roll the rest of your party. And in the remakes Miltank has Scrappy as well as Rollout (although the surprise factor is gone).
theprodigy
Member
nah, FE10 is more like "aha you're playing as the DB, enjoy this hard chapter", it's pretty erratic
(well, unless you know what you're doing and dump everything on Jill, lol)
BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO
Junior Member
lol @ not having Matador in there.
BruceLeeRoy
Banned
Aztec still gives me nightmares to this day. Great great list. I have never seen this guys videos before but I like him a lot. Thanks OP.
Jackal Snipers are hard but completely manageable.
Jackal Snipers are hard but completely manageable.
That's the one, it's been a while.
HitokiriNate85
Member
MP: Echoes should probably be mentioned on any list including difficulty spikes. The Boost Guardian is tough even on successive playthroughs. I'm not sure if I ever beat the game on hard, even though I finished it 3-4 times. The spider ball guardian was also pretty tough, at least for me.
BruceLeeRoy
Banned
Spot on. This is the only other game I would have included which is really saying something because the whole game is challenging but these bastards made me almost break my controller.
GOW3 trial is absolutely nothing compared to the trial in Ascension. I would argue though that neither game belongs on the list.
Calamari41
41 > 38
The Chest Race levels in Rayman Origins actually weren't hard at all. In fact, they are so easy that you can do most of them with your eyes closed. The problem is that you have to die 30 times in order to get the button press order right, since they are 100% trial and error. The difficulty never comes from having to make a "real-time" timing decision or perform a tricky bit of platforming. It just comes from not knowing that it's a half jump followed by a full jump followed by two wall jumps and three half jumps, all while jamming forward.
I will admit that it is exaggerating to call them outright easy, but they are in no way similar to a level like Grandmaster Galaxy where you actually have to do something other than press the buttons in a pre-determined order the same way every time.
I will admit that it is exaggerating to call them outright easy, but they are in no way similar to a level like Grandmaster Galaxy where you actually have to do something other than press the buttons in a pre-determined order the same way every time.
Guerrillas in the Mist
Member
Far Cry was pretty brutal. You're fighting mercs in fun, open environments, then suddenly you're stuck in tunnels with mutants that can take entire clips to the face without breaking a sweat.
It's no coincidence that everyone remembers the first 1/5-1/4 of the game (and that neat later mission with the ship).
It's no coincidence that everyone remembers the first 1/5-1/4 of the game (and that neat later mission with the ship).
RockmanWhore
Member
Aztec was really hard, but the video doesn't explain the situation really well I think. The problem with Aztec wasn't really Jaw, you could trick that fight by standing extremely close to him, or just play kill it from distance with a bit of patience. Was was really horrible about Aztec in the highest difficulty settings was that the AI was totally broken, the enemies accuracy was much higher than in other levels, they aimed perfectly and could see you before they had a line of fire.
That said, Timesplitters 2 in hard was even harder, except it was less cheap and all the levels were super hard, not just one lol. Man I miss these kind of super challenging single player FPS. Nowadays FPS are a joke in single player, you have health regen, checkpoints every 2 cm, it's no fun. I wish there were modern shooters that took on this legacy. Fuck you Half Life and your linear levels and cinematic crap, you've ruined single player FPS :-(
That said, Timesplitters 2 in hard was even harder, except it was less cheap and all the levels were super hard, not just one lol. Man I miss these kind of super challenging single player FPS. Nowadays FPS are a joke in single player, you have health regen, checkpoints every 2 cm, it's no fun. I wish there were modern shooters that took on this legacy. Fuck you Half Life and your linear levels and cinematic crap, you've ruined single player FPS :-(
Aizu_Itsuko
Member
Whoever made this has not played many games.
ScreenSplitter
Member
Jak II. One of my favorites despite the hate it gets, but man was that game hard. I completed it when I was 10 but I still have trouble with it today in certain parts.
"Hey, how about you get across half the overworld in 2 minutes whilst enemies are trying to divebomb your car? Yeah, do that."
"Hey, how about you get across half the overworld in 2 minutes whilst enemies are trying to divebomb your car? Yeah, do that."
jchap
Member
The skill in WoW you must master is the social organization skill to find 39 or 19 other people who aren't horrible and can consistently attend.
Meat circus is overrated by such a huge margin. It has two jumps that require careful placement of the camera. Other than that it's fine, and a pretty cool final level.
That still applies now. The boss fights are much harder, and much more unforgiving. Bosses of the old had maybe 2-3 mechanics tops. Look at now. Lei shen on 25 man Heroic when it was current was brutal. It's an endurance run that requires 25 people to do their job, and it can be fucked up in a matter of seconds. Some bosses take guilds 200-300 pulls to even down once.
Eve is only hard because a good portion of the game isn't even mentioned in the tutorial. It's a huge ass game.
That still applies now. The boss fights are much harder, and much more unforgiving. Bosses of the old had maybe 2-3 mechanics tops. Look at now. Lei shen on 25 man Heroic when it was current was brutal. It's an endurance run that requires 25 people to do their job, and it can be fucked up in a matter of seconds. Some bosses take guilds 200-300 pulls to even down once.
Eve is only hard because a good portion of the game isn't even mentioned in the tutorial. It's a huge ass game.
u4ea
Member
Oh man. In Tribes Ascend, until lvl10 you only play with <lvl10 people and you can easily kick their asses If you have some fps experience.
But once you hit 10, you are thrown into the wild and get slaughtered by a bunch of lvl50s blueplating you like a skeet.
To be honest, if you just dance around for 15 minutes and chip away on them, it's far from impossible when soloing.
I've had more trouble with douchebag Nito and his douchebag skeleton minions
I played Ascend during beta and I don't remember that limitation then, it's good that they added it so at least newer players can get a sense of how to move around without being constantly dead. The tutorials for skiing and movement and such also help with the learning curve. Back in the late 90s there were no such luxuries hah. At that time skiing was a bug someone found that eventually spread and made the game good, so the developers left it in.
i thought so as well and almost quit the game at that fight.
fredrancour
Member
Always thought of the difficulty curve as the game's overall arc of how difficulty evolves, not the difficulty of any one part.
Phire Phox
Banned
Great list especially Whitney. When I was playing Silver for the first time that Miltank gave me nightmares. Shit was unstoppable so I had to grind.