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Great games with shocking difficulty spikes?
- Thread starter Magic-Man
- Start date
the first fights with Jaegers in Trails FC were so brutal they single-handedly forced me to actually get a grip on the mechanics as i was just getting slaughtered.
more recently Trails Cold Steel 3. on the prologue, you hit a boss which in previous games would be a lategame tier enemy easily in its strength and abilities. dude goes 'fuck you' and revives itself hyperbuffed after you attempt to lower its hp to 0 the first time, and lord help you if you already burned your S-break trying to be a badass on the first form.
dude does obscene amounts of damage, like 80% of your health with AoE attacks that just happen to line up perfectly with where everyone's standing already even on the first form. and then on the 2nd form it keeps healing itself for thousands of health, numbers you can barely even compete with doing like 300 a turn, while also buffing.
if you let it drag even just a couple of turns(which is very easy to do with the constant healing), dude gets so stupidly strong he starts straight one-shotting your entire party with his AoE. for reference, i didnt have this brutal of an assbeating from any story boss in the entirety of Cold Steel 2. it was so wild to randomly get a boss like that right off the bat
more recently Trails Cold Steel 3. on the prologue, you hit a boss which in previous games would be a lategame tier enemy easily in its strength and abilities. dude goes 'fuck you' and revives itself hyperbuffed after you attempt to lower its hp to 0 the first time, and lord help you if you already burned your S-break trying to be a badass on the first form.
dude does obscene amounts of damage, like 80% of your health with AoE attacks that just happen to line up perfectly with where everyone's standing already even on the first form. and then on the 2nd form it keeps healing itself for thousands of health, numbers you can barely even compete with doing like 300 a turn, while also buffing.
if you let it drag even just a couple of turns(which is very easy to do with the constant healing), dude gets so stupidly strong he starts straight one-shotting your entire party with his AoE. for reference, i didnt have this brutal of an assbeating from any story boss in the entirety of Cold Steel 2. it was so wild to randomly get a boss like that right off the bat
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Halo 5 was awesome on legendary difficulty but the "three wardens" battle was some bullshit.
Transformers on PS2 had Unicron as the final boss. The fight happened flying in space which introduced a whole new segment. I remember the controls being awful and the whole battle confusing. The same thing happened in GTA:SA and it's flying controls.
Not sure if those are difficuly spikes per se or rather bad game design.
Transformers on PS2 had Unicron as the final boss. The fight happened flying in space which introduced a whole new segment. I remember the controls being awful and the whole battle confusing. The same thing happened in GTA:SA and it's flying controls.
Not sure if those are difficuly spikes per se or rather bad game design.
The Biolizard in Sonic Adventure 2
Mission 7 in Valkyria Chronicles was definitely a huge spike but it felt warranted within the context.
Mission 7 in Valkyria Chronicles was definitely a huge spike but it felt warranted within the context.
I felt the same way. Only real issue for me on hard.
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This is the only real answer
It's a third into the game and it's about 5x harder than the rest of the game put together
I literally had to use a guide and move exactly where the guide said for every single turn, and get some luck with rocket strikes, to make it through
No idea how play testers didn't pick up on it, of if they did why Sega told them to fuck off
Absolutely. It is way too long without really any margin of error.
I don't remember having that much trouble with the chase, though it probably took me few tries. Not being able to heal after a while in that boss fight made it feel really difficult, till I realized that I could instead use mana to hit the boss with the upgraded spear that made great dmg.
The motherfucking cherub statues in the Ghostbusters video game.
Fuck those things! They're just as bad in the remaster as they were in the original.
Fuck those things! They're just as bad in the remaster as they were in the original.
In dark souls 3, I found the ringed city to be so much harder than anything in the main game and even the dlc areas before it. The staircase section is just hell. I just ran my first time through that section. Not worth it to meticulously bait those enemies for plunging attacks.
I was thinking the same thing. They have a ways to go and it only gets crazier.
I always felt this way about Sen's Fortress. It's great in terms of level design, but on the first run it's such a rapid resetting of the rules. Everything up to that point has introduced new challenges in managed sections with minimum loss for failure, then Sen's is just balls-out tough new enemies (we hope you learned to parry and brought something ranged), death traps and pitfalls everywhere, no shortcuts, no ladders and just one (very well hidden) bonfire at the top with no quick way back if you suddenly need to visit a vendor without rerunning the whole fortress.
It's great fun, but a total arse-ache if you're not ready.
It's great fun, but a total arse-ache if you're not ready.
Man Miguel was like hitting a goddamn brick wall my first Chrono Cross playthrough. He just straight wrecked me over and over. After him the rest of the game felt like cruise control.
the final few bosses of Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door are pretty brutal compared to everything that comes before them. As a kid I ended up using an Action Replay just to see the ending. It didn't help that it's like 3 bosses in a row with numerous unskippable cutscenes in between.
Also on a similar note, Mario & Luigi Partners in Time's final boss was basically unbeatable unless you fought every single enemy in the game up until that point. I remember spending like 3-4 hours on it, panicking and rushing to find my DS charger, only to lose anyway
Also on a similar note, Mario & Luigi Partners in Time's final boss was basically unbeatable unless you fought every single enemy in the game up until that point. I remember spending like 3-4 hours on it, panicking and rushing to find my DS charger, only to lose anyway
That one was the one I was gonna mention for sure.
It's such a ridiculously sudden spike that makes no sense.
Really? I never found them too bad unless you take them on right at the start of the game
As much as I love the game, Control has a massive difficulty spike at the end.
I'm still not sure if I've ever finished the game on anything above easy because of that final section.
I'm still not sure if I've ever finished the game on anything above easy because of that final section.
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I did not have any problem with the main game but i'm going through Burial at Sea ep1 and it turns into a survival game. Ammo and eve are very scarce.
Seymour battle on the cliff in ffx. That shit kicked my ass so hard i never beat the game. Next would be the final tank battles in arkham knight
I fought my first lynel with base stamina, 4 hearts and shit weapons. The Coliseum fight. I think I died like 60 plus times it was literally a one hit kill battle for an enemy that takes ages to die. Most satisfying fight in my entire playthrough. Nothing else for the rest of the game matched beating that first Lynel.
You know that feature in the BOTW DLC where it shows your path through your entire game on the map and shows you all your deaths? Well looking at that it aint hard to pinpoint where I fought that Lynel.
Is this satire of some sort that i'm missing? Western Plaguelands was a level 40 (iirc) zone.
Well you never have to fight a lynel I guess, you can wait until you get more hearts and abilities, so I dunno if its really a difficulty spike.
Although the DLC does actually have a difficult lynel fight in the master sword trials, but all the others I found pretty easy
Ohh man the Wardens are such badly designed bosses.
So unfun solo on pretty much any difficulty, but on legendary you go from have a fun but challenging time to simply being frustrated at whats going on.
Knowing that ill have to fight him again pretty much made me give up on a Solo Legendary run.
He actually isnt too bad when playing Co-op though.
I beg 343i to not including something that badly designed into Infinite.
I went from left to right on the map. It was the next zone in order. That's how games have always worked.
WPL was level 50+. Silverpine was the correct second zone for Undead.
This is going to be a weird one but:
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
That last magic seal you have to draw, not even an enemy. You literally can't progress if you can't draw the fucking thing and I couldn't do it a single time within approximately 30 tries. Then I just said screw it, went for the boss anyway and wasn't able to ever finish it due to not being able to draw the sigil.
Dropped the game and it soured the entire thing for me despite absolutely loving it up until then.
Also the final boss in Sekiro is fucking ridiculous as far as I'm concerned. I've played the game fresh three times all the way to the final boss and all three playthroughs I gave up on him again. I just can't do it. I get it's skill-check-central and all but I can do most other things, including bosses, on my first or second try at this point but that one, not a chance. Utterly frustrating.
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow
That last magic seal you have to draw, not even an enemy. You literally can't progress if you can't draw the fucking thing and I couldn't do it a single time within approximately 30 tries. Then I just said screw it, went for the boss anyway and wasn't able to ever finish it due to not being able to draw the sigil.
Dropped the game and it soured the entire thing for me despite absolutely loving it up until then.
Also the final boss in Sekiro is fucking ridiculous as far as I'm concerned. I've played the game fresh three times all the way to the final boss and all three playthroughs I gave up on him again. I just can't do it. I get it's skill-check-central and all but I can do most other things, including bosses, on my first or second try at this point but that one, not a chance. Utterly frustrating.
I bought a used DS with a slightly miscalibrated touch screen. Just imagine how much fun that made the seals in Dawn of Sorrow.
This probably doesn't qualify as a great game, but I recent checked the 2018 Call of Cthulhu off my backlog. I was enjoying it as an adventure game with light puzzle solving elements when suddenly
After multiple attempts I wound up having to pull up a walkthrough on Youtube. I know the devs were trying to go for dramatic tension, but I found the whole section of the game extremely obnoxious especially as it felt tacked on.
the game sics an eldritch abomination after you with no warning. The game instantly turns into Alien Isolation with no explanation on what you have to do next.
After multiple attempts I wound up having to pull up a walkthrough on Youtube. I know the devs were trying to go for dramatic tension, but I found the whole section of the game extremely obnoxious especially as it felt tacked on.
A Plague Tale was one of my favorite games last year.
But the fact that boss fight was just awful. I know that they've talked about TLoU being an inspiration, but I wish they would taken from ND's decision to just not have boss battles in the game. Including not even having something you could call a final boss. I've watched Let's Plays of the game and I can't think of anyone that seemed to like that boss fight. It was really at odds with the rest of the game.
I might be missing a joke but that was like a level 50+ zone lol, you're definitely not meant to go there early on.
"Is this one of those, you're suppose to lose sections"
*BRRRRAAT*
" Okay, I guess not. "
Recency bias but FF 7 remake had this when I reached the hell house fight. Had to turn it down to easy on that fight and I finished the game on that difficulty ultimately.
On the other end Nioh 2 had a difficulty drop off for me, was very tough completing the first few mission areas of the game but last ones weren't much of an issue. Due to leveling, getting good weapons and gear also the onmyo magic.
On the other end Nioh 2 had a difficulty drop off for me, was very tough completing the first few mission areas of the game but last ones weren't much of an issue. Due to leveling, getting good weapons and gear also the onmyo magic.
Difficulty spike isn't the worst part too(which I don't think is much harder than the rest of the game on inferno) it's a mechanic check at the final boss and just on harder difficulties lol. Something most games would through at you very early on, this game suddenly decide, after at least two full playthroughs, you're not seeing the credit again without learning to dodge!
I actually had a lot of fun with earlier ones but yeah, then it went downhill. Even the one prior to me just dropping the game was fucking obnoxious.
Speaking of Lovecraft games, thre was a part in Call Of Cthulhu: Dark Corners Of The Earth that actually made me drop it. The game featured an injury system as far as I recall this and there was a segment later on that suddenly involved a stealth section and then a gun fight. The controls were clunky as fuck and the gunplay worse and I just remember reloading the same section at least twenty times over a few days and every single time getting nailed with a shotgun blast that would leave you limping at 1/4 of your speed and your vision blurred.
That Volcano Boss on chapter 3, I never had any problem with the game so far, then BOOM, you don't understand how to play the game ! Thing get even harder later on....
