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[SatelliteOfLove]

List is a fraud.

I never understood why the WoW curve end up over pretty high. WoW, even in 40 mens raids, was still really easy. Do your regular gig, just remember the events during the boss fight. Jump at the right moment and bam, done.

For you. And if you were in a posistion of every person being that good, you had put in serious work to get there.

Nowadays it's more true than ever with the skill wall somewhere in endgame rising miles high out of a featureless plain that teaches and incintivizes mediocre play.

 

[T.O.P]

Ornstein and Smough in Dark Souls.

took me days to get past em lol


and this

@not my shot

 

[BigDug13]

Interesting list where 6 of the 10 games are Nintendo console exclusives.

 

[Rubius]

 

[Interrobang]

Viewtiful Joe. You slam through the game, with some hard points here and there, but then that last boss (Fire Leo or something? It's been a while) is near impossible. You are never prepared.

 

[Tye The Czar]

I would say the Jungle in Spelunky. While the Mines were easier to navigate and get treasure from, the Jungle is where you're REALLY required to check around the environment, conserve bombs, and already have items such as climbing gloves, the jetpack or cape and loadsamoney. The worst part? The traps and enemies:

• Boomerang-wielding Tiki men
• Pirhanas, which are almost guaranteed to bite you before you can hit them.
• THOSE BASTARD MONKEYS WHICH STEAL YOUR STUFF AND OFTEN DROP THEM ONTO SPIKES.
• Spike Totems. Enough said.
  Spoiler

  PROTIP: Have the corpse of an enemy stuck between a wall and a spike trap to make your life easier.

 

[Tye The Czar]

Many Treasure games had almost extreme learning curve; in particular, in Alien Soldier you must play close to perfection since the beginning, truly a merciless challenge.

Also Sin e Punishment requires you to master game system pretty early on.

Or use Auto-Targeting.

 

[Neffarias_Bredd]

took me days to get past em lol


and this

@not my shot

I think this section of the game stopped me from playing for like 4 months lol

 

[Lasthope106]

Meat Circus and the archers in Dark Souls weren't that hard. Come on guys, get better at games. You are part of neogaf ffs.

 

[KLonso]

Huh, I didn't find the Rayman Origins chest chases too bad

 

[Gorger]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO7NILnmURU

 

[SykoTech]

No Jak II? It got harder than most of these picks.

I did Meat Circus on my first try. It was tougher than the rest of the game's platforming, but not particularly hard.

Milktank seemed tough using a usual direct strategy, but was easy if you shake things up a bit.

Labyrinth Zone? Please.

The chest chases weren't bad, and they weren't even the hardest part of Origins. The Livid Dead level was way harder, though still doable.

These S Rank races in Sonic All Star Racing Transformed are destroying me

This is a good one too. Took forever for me to do those, and I still haven't done the traffic ones. Ugh.

 

[Huevos de Oro]

Glad Dark Souls isn't on the list.
I love the game, but damn if its alleged "incredible difficulty" isn't overstated way beyond reality.

Agreed. It's a difficult game because it demands a level of patience, observation and analysis from the person playing it that is not usually seen anymore. Also it punishes the lack of said traits harshly. However, if careful playing is involved, the game's difficulty quickly fades away.

My picks would be, from what I have played:
Dwarf Fortress
Dota 2
I'd lump EVE Online there as well but I haven't tried it at all.

 

[Lightning Lord]

F-Zero GX, mannnnn.

To this day I have still not beaten the story mode on it.

 

[Piers]

I agree with the list - especially no. 2.

For me, no.1 would probably be any online FPS/MOBA.
Edit: I think Dark Souls should be a fair mention, because Sen's Fortress first time really hits hard when unaware of what it is about. The asshole archers in Anor Londo are a pain to get past. Too many people say it isn't hard even though they clearly went and strictly followed walkthroughs.

 

[LaserHawk]

People often make a big deal about the speeder bikes level on Battletoads, and it IS a challenge, but that level's actually possible and fair compared to some of the levels that come after it. Battletoads reaches a point where even highly skilled players can't win their first time, and must succumb to numerous arbitrary deaths just so they can know what to do in their next playthrough.... if they can memorize it well enough.

I consider Battletoads to be a game that would have been incredible if it hadn't been ruined by broken design ideas.

 

[jokkir]

I feel like a lot on that list just lists hard levels and not actual difficulty curves.

Anyway, Blighttown in Dark Souls. Fuck everything about that area and I still dread going back to that place to get shards. Especially since everything before it wasn't too difficult. Damn toxic archers, falling to death and the mud. Not to mention the goddamn mosquitos that follow you from miles away.

 

[Mike Golf]

MGO: Metal Gear Online. All the cheaters and bad net code aside, the MP had a huge learning curve. Until you found out how to head shot in one press of L1 and R1, run by and knife stab someone, and CQC throw/go to first person/stab flawlessly you were pretty much boned against any experienced players.

Also Valkyrie Profile Covenant of The Plume. Jesus, that game is ridiculously difficult.

 

[wsoxfan1214]

...in what way is Rusty Bucket Bay even slightly difficult?

 

[MichaelFassbender]

Bed of Chaos needs to be on there, just for the sheer awfulness of the backtracking that one is forced to endure if you screw up (and you WILL screw up).

 

[Dark Octave]

OMG you are not lying.

 

[BY2K]

The post-game worlds in Super Mario 3D World.

Holy shit.

 

[Neffarias_Bredd]

Meat Circus and the archers in Dark Souls weren't that hard. Come on guys, get better at games. You are part of neogaf ffs.

People have trouble with different things. I made it through pretty much everything else in Dark Souls without much trouble but something about those archers destroyed me

 

[Huevos de Oro]

Bed of Chaos needs to be on there, just for the sheer awfulness of the backtracking that one is forced to endure if you screw up (and you WILL screw up).

It's infuriating, but I don't think that's a conscious approach to difficulty, just shitty boss design.

 

[Evolution_1ne]

honorable mention goes to New Vegas dead money add on

red smoke all over the map that will kill you
ghost people that can't be killed and can kill you
oh here a weapon that's really good, and 5 fucking rounds of ammo, oh and it's in shit condition and will probably break soon
speakers that can kill you and are hidden in the most asinine locations so all you can do run......hahaha.....run little piggy RUN!!!

then you get to the Casino and it's a fucking cake walk

 

[Raxus]

I was expecting Trauma Center there

Oh look. Triangle virus. HOPE YOU HAVE SLOW MO POWERS!

 

[Tiops]

The only part in Dark Souls that would fit this list is Capra Demon. Ornstein & Smoke are really hard too, but you already gone through so many shit in the game when you reach them that it's not surprising.

Capra gets you when you're thinking that you're starting to understand the game and getting good at it, then crushes your dreams.

 

[woodland]

Dota 2
Shadowrun
Halo
Starcraft;BW

 

[sphinx]

isn't the village in Resident Evil 4 one of the most brutal and absurd difficulty spikes in video games?

I'd bet every single gamer died once there and thought "what the fuck did just happen?!" as Leon's head rolled on the ground at the single touch of the chainsaw machine.

 

[robotzombie]

Does a curve at the start count?

Because the beginning of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn was way harder than the rest of the game. Kind of funny how the next non-remake game is the complete opposite. Awakening welcomes new inexperienced players, while Radiant Dawn is like: THIS IS FIRE EMBLEM, BITCH.

Wha? I would say Awakening is the same. The only difficult part of that game is the beginning. Then they give you an insane amount of tools to break the game almost instantly.

 

[JeTmAn81]

I feel like the very last level of Super Mario 3D Land (8-Crown?) should've been included. So much harder than not just any level in that game, but any level in a Mario game. I never beat it.

 

[Anth0ny]

Cool, I have the same #1. Death Mountain in Zelda 2 that early in the game was pure evil, but it felt great to conquer it.

 

[Mercury Land-Snake]

 

[MiKeD]

GT5 with a DS3 is alright...until the Vettel challenges. Just like that.

 

[PAULINK]

Jumpin Jack Flash is hard, but the levels that precede it are pretty hard too. If the game had a difficulty spike, I'd probably say that it's Canned Heat, if anything. Pretty much all the songs prior had you going along to the rhythm of the melody, but Canned Heat has you following this totally weird, almost arbitrary beat.

The reason why JJF is hard is because it does not fucking let up, you miss two beats and you are done, turn it off and snap it in half. I remember spending a whole day on that song on hard mode (which obviously just made me play worse). There is very little room for error. At least in other songs, you can pick back up if you goof a couple of times.

 

[flintstryker]

Was expecting esiting the cave in DQ 2 never have I encountered such a ridiculous curve in difficulty before

 

[Elaugaufein]

Does a curve at the start count?

Because the beginning of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn was way harder than the rest of the game. Kind of funny how the next non-remake game is the complete opposite. Awakening welcomes new inexperienced players, while Radiant Dawn is like: THIS IS FIRE EMBLEM, BITCH.

There's actually a couple of Fire Emblem games in between: the remake of Shadow Dragon (which came out in English but is regarded as pretty terrible) and a remake of the sequel to the previous (which never came out in English but there is a Fan Translation), you can see the introduction and refinement to a lot of the more welcoming aspects of Awakening in these two games. You might not be counting them because they are remakes but it definitely softens up the apparent reverse difficult spike in the series.

 

[Winterfang]

Winnie the pooh home run derby is the kind of game that starts easy, then gets pretty challenging real fast, then gets so hard you think there's must be a mistake, then gets so broken you are begging for mercy, then and only them does the real game starts and it gets 10X more difficult,

 

[SneakyStephan]

haha this

not many people make it past the first day(s) of eve online either

dota2 initially is brutal (but fun to learn so w/e)

also for me the gt5 rally challenges with a controller
I was like 'what do you want from me!'
then I tried it with a wheel and the force feedback tells you when you lose grip and you go click, oh I see now this is the best rally in a game since RBR

My brother was ready to give up on the first one after I bought him the game, it was funny, then me beating him with ease (since I played the game before) demotivated him even more

 

[Muchi Muchi Pink]

Yeah, first boss is where a lot people stopped playing NGB. Agreed with Alma as well.

 

[yamo]

I just completed the Tree Tops level in Guacamelee last night. Fuck that level.

Fuck that level!

Spoiler

Stopped playing Guacamelee because of that level. I'm weak when it comes to difficult platformers.

 

[Jarmel]

List is a fraud.

First time playing through Nocturne and that image is wrong. It's this motherfucker:

 

[Rolodzeo]

 

[Foffy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aO7NILnmURU

Sigma 2 is not 2. Sigma 2 is the game scaled down, arguably at a fairer difficulty. Ninja Gaiden 2 on Xbox 360 has a lot of dumb bullshit in it that from someone like Itagaki, seems like nothing but artificial padding.

But considering he left Tecmo weeks after the games' release, I don't blame him for not being more thoughtful for what the title actually had.

Does a curve at the start count?

Because the beginning of Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn was way harder than the rest of the game. Kind of funny how the next non-remake game is the complete opposite. Awakening welcomes new inexperienced players, while Radiant Dawn is like: THIS IS FIRE EMBLEM, BITCH.

Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 puts that fucking game to shame. I warn you. It is perhaps not only the hardest Fire Emblem, but the hardest game Nintendo made on the Super Nintendo.

 

[Muchi Muchi Pink]

Sigma 2 is not 2. Sigma 2 is the game scaled down, arguably at a fairer difficulty. Ninja Gaiden 2 on Xbox 360 has a lot of dumb bullshit in it that from someone like Itagaki, seems like nothing but artificial padding.

But considering he left Tecmo weeks after the games' release, I don't blame him for not being more thoughtful for what the title actually had.

Well, he said that he wanted to punish the players as hard as possible. I liked it that way.
Too be fair you got a lot broken tools anyway.

 

[SmartBase]

The first Ninja Gaiden was piss easy for me, I don't get it.

EVE is nice and simple spreadsheet gaming until you start PVPing and joining corporations. Hope you have corporate insurance!

 

[dose]

Pretty poor list, some of those on that list aren't that hard.
One definitely missing is Driver. The compulsory tutorial level is rock hard (perform all the moves in the underground car park) and the very last level is fucking ridiculous, where everybody elses cars destroy your shitty one.

 

[Foffy]

Well, he said that he wanted to punish the players as hard as possible. I liked it that way.
Too be fair you got a lot broken tools anyway.

Some of it is punishment, but some of it is bad design. You can be attacked by werewolves but when you stand on a table, they're absolutely clueless on what to do with you. I think it comes down to him not giving it the same level of care and love as the first game, which again goes into his disconnections with Tecmo blossoming at the time. It's no different than how a lot of higher head executive decisions have ruined a lot of modern games.

 

[Muchi Muchi Pink]

Some of it is punishment, but some of it is bad design. You can be attacked by werewolves but when you stand on a table, they're absolutely clueless on what to do with you. I think it comes down to him not giving it the same level of care and love as the first game, which again goes into his disconnections with Tecmo blossoming at the time. It's no different than how a lot of higher head executive decisions have ruined a lot of modern games.

Well, yes that's true. NGB was delayed last minute to fix the AI etc. NG2 is rushed no excuses.


I'd put the last boss of Vanquish on the list. Especially on God Hard.

 

[SolidSnakex]

For me the biggest curve is DOTA 2, while the biggest spike was Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out.

I think Tyson should definitely be there. No one before him prepares you for those uppercuts.