As a general rule, the further into a game you go, the more challenging and complex it becomes...but of course, there are exceptions to every rule. Some games like to throw you in the deep end right from the start and let you puzzle things out, and others like to throw brick walls at you in the form of bosses or dungeons that are much, MUCH harder than what you have experienced previously. What are some of the best/worst difficulty spikes you've experienced in video games? When you're confronted with something that is much more challenging, are you liable to give up, or persevere until you overcome it? Have you ever been let down by such a difficulty spike that others have talked up, finding it far less challenging than you thought? Generally, do you think that difficulty spikes are bad practice for video games, or a good way of shaking things up?
Good example: Dark Souls series. This game is notorious for being difficult, and for a good reason, too. The bosses run on their battle music, which is commonly 4 beats by 4 beats, but I head of a 3 beat by 4 beat boss somewhere in the games. It was made to be hard, so that's a good game for the spike in difficulty, even if some people to cry when they die. I actually wouldn't know that; I've never played. Bad example: Most recent games. Coming into a new gen of games, I've realized how easy they are. No difficulty, and the walks are just so low on the ground. It's disappointing, though God of War and Getting Over it with Bennet Foddy, are okay examples that go in my above explanation. Make it hard, but not too hard, and add a challenge every once in a while. That's all I ask for. So, after that mess of a rant, about your other questions. Nope. I love a good, hard game, though I might take a break if I begin to feel my emotions getting out of hand. When they do, it becomes a problem, so gaming has really just become a relief if I can avoid it constantly. I also don't talk to people, so I'm never aware of spikes in difficulty until they're right in front of me. I've never been let down, unless it was a shockingly easy bump... And for you're last question, they're indeed a good thing. I just love a good spike in difficulty from time to time, as it gives us room to grown and find new strategies to push forward. They're very much needed, I would think.
I always liked Simpsons Hit and Run's difficulty (well, less of a spike and more of a) curve, with it openly mocking it's first level (1 level = 7 story missions) with a quip in the loading screen "Studies show 90% of games start with easy tutorial level". However, come levels 6 and 7, the missions can be incredibly difficult. One example is Level 6 Mission (I think it was) 6, where you have to use a certain car to break various items in the world under a time limit. The catch? The time limit is small, you have to both break all the stands and return to the studio in the same time limit, and the car itself has good speed but the endurance of paper mache. A very difficult mission, but made so it's satisfying to complete. Another example is Level 7 Mission 7, the very last mission. It'd make sense to be the most challenging of them all, but this goes above and beyond. You are tasked with taking a barrel of nuclear waste from the power plant to the school. This makes you drive the entire length of the map, in a faster, paper-mache-er car, and with any bump forcing you to launch the barrel away, making you drive back and to it again! All under an unforgiving time limit with an escape chase thrown in the middle! One slightly redeeming thing about this is that the timer resets with every new replacement barrel obtained, assuming you make it back in the time limit. And with no option to skip, the big finale is hidden behind this behemoth of a mission. But when you do complete it... I wouldn't doubt you sitting back through half the cutscene, relaxed and ecstatic it's over. TLDR; though Simpson's Hit and Run's difficulty curve is nice, there are definitely some big (albiet well done) spikes in it
If any of you played Mario Party DS, I think you know what I’m talking about. So of the 5 main story boards, the 4th one had the most difficult boss battle, even tougher than the final boss battle. Here is a video of the boss fight: Trust me, it’s much harder than it looks. As a kid I always had to ask my brother to do it. I replayed it recently and was stuck on this for weeks. I played it at half speed, I looked up numerous tutorials and I was still having trouble.
There are two unfair difficulty spikes in Salt and Sanctuary. The names of the bosses don't really spoil much based on how obscure and cool they're named, so I'm just going un-spoilered here. The Disemboweled Husk is just stupidly difficult. If you're playing heavy-armored, then it is mathematically impossible for you to dodge his long-range attacks. You will take damage, and since this is Souls-like, you can probably survive 3 hits at most in between limited heals (and probably get hit again while you're healing). Compare that to the next boss The Most Foul, which I still have never lost to in three playthroughs. An average of 80 deaths per 1 victory from me against the Husk going to me being undefeated by the Foul next boss. That's an improper difficulty spike. Compare that to the Witch Of The Lake, which is less of a difficulty spike and more of a difficulty climb-up-a-wall-to-a-new-plateau. At least there it makes sense: she marks the progression to the thematic end of the game (you know two minutes after beating her that you're beginning the long approach to the end of the game). She's way harder than the boss before her (which I encountered and defeated accidentally), but she's a difficulty gatekeeper, so I'm okay with that.
I think I've seen a little of this in the first Viewtiful Joe and World of Light in Smash Ultimate. The worst ones I've seen? Easily in the Xenoblade games. I think they kind of throw you into the deep end at the very start of Viewtiful Joe 1 as you don't get any of your powers until you face Captain Blue as a midboss. Some portions of "Some Like it Red Hot", the second level of the game, were actually easier than the first level, which I don't remember the name of. World of Light does this a little as well as sometimes you will come across Legendary Spirits in what should be a relatively easy part of the story, like Victini at the Power Plant. I'm not saying where this fight was exactly, but I had absolutely no Legendary Spirits or any Primary Spirits with relatively close Power Level. To make it worse... Spoiler: Victini Spirit Battle Enemy team: White/Shiny? Incineroar Certain Pokémon emerge from Pokeballs (Victini) Opponent starts with said Pokéball I don't remember the rest Yeah. I had to fight a character that I was never fond of to begin with, AND I was without any of the characters I was that great with. If it had been any other Fighter, I would've called it quits until I got my first Legendary Primary Spirit (which was M. Bison), but losing to the one I had to fight only infuriated me, which only motivated me to try again and even harder. I was then understandably pretty aggravated when I realized it was a Support Spirit I was trying so hard to get, and not even a Primary I could level up to help deal with other Legendary Spirits. If I remember right, it was even in the way of a much easier battle. At least the apparently infamous Dr Willy fight was out of the way in World of Light. Oh, and Xenoblade 1 and 2 share one: Territorial Rotbart or however his name was spelled. High level Unique monster that appears in a fairly early area in both games around some relatively easy to beat enemies. There's also Satorl Marsh with its fog (and possibly night-time enemies if you haven't figured out that you can change the time) which spawns some rather nasty level 80 enemies despite not quite being halfway through the game. And there's also the Deinos Saurus in Makna near one of the bosses. Basically Xenoblade games can have difficulty spikes (insane ones in some cases) all over the place if you're not careful, like the Ether Fog in Tantal, which spawns a massive amount of nast enemies that are nearly twice the level of the usual enemies, which I discovered on my first visit. Xenoblade X is probably just as bad with them, and I haven't even played it yet. (I'm playing it blind for my Youtube Channel when I finally get to it) Another one, which Chuggaaconroy ran into, is that the strongest enemy in the game can appear during a fight with the Level 100 Unique Monster, Final Marcus, in Xenoblade 1. You can legitly go from fighting a Level 100 UM to fighting a Level 120 UM quite easily as both happen at night and one spawns in a blizzard. Oh, and your level cap? It's only 99.
Honestly, whenever I think of "difficulty spike" I automatically think of certain bosses in Baten Kaitos. Especially the trio of Giacomo, Ayme, and Folon. They're pretty tough on their own, but when you have to fight all three at once? It's quite early in the game the first time, and it's a wall. I have no idea how I managed to win, but I do know if they ever remaster this game I am NOT looking forward to doing it again...and you have to do this THREE TIMES. The second and third fight are back to back. There was the Emperor, who automatically kills one of your characters at the start of the fight and will kill a second if you don't hurry up, the Angel of Darkness, who inflicts paralysis and gets more moves than they have any right to, and the final boss itself, which you need to kill pretty much in one round or you're going to be hit by Enchanted Blade, which does ridiculous amounts of damage and heals the boss by the same amount. This game does not pull punches with its major bosses. The entirety of Resonance of Fate is like navigating a sheer cliff wall with retracting iron spikes. This game just LOVES to screw with you by taking out one or even two party members - when you only have three! - and leaving you with very limited resources. It starts off moderately challenging, but then you have to escort a ridiculously fragile doll through several maps with very durable living dolls, culiminating in a giant boss...and the cart still moves during the boss battle, RIGHT TOWARDS IT. After that, you lose a party member. After that, you lose TWO and have to fight a boss with someone solo. Then the game evens out a bit until the end, where the difficulty is ramped up to eleven as enemies suddenly become a lot more durable. It's a very nasty game which never lets you get comfortable for too long. Flamelurker in Demons Souls was a personal one for me in that I found him IMPOSSIBLE for the longest time. The rest of the game, both before and after him, I breezed through with ease. But Flamelurker...well. There was something about him that made him a roadblock. A weird one for me was the Eidolon battles in FFXIII, too. It might have been because they were on a timer and required a very specific strategy, but I remember Odin and Bahamut in particular being very difficult compared to the rest of the game. And a semi-hilarious one recently was Gulp in Spyro 2. The game is laughably easy, but then you get this boss who can fire multiple homing missiles at once and is impervious to damage unless you grab projectiles...which he can also grab. That's more of a difficulty thorn than a difficulty spike, but comparatively speaking it was surprisingly tough! The White Palace in Hollow Knight is several literal difficulty spikes. I mean, it's quite do-able with the right setup...eventually. It took me nearly three hours of repeated death to push my way through it. In a game that focuses so heavily on combat, having an intense platforming segment like that - especially one where you're booted back to the last checkpoint if you touch any of the many spiky hazards - was very jarring. And irritating.
One of the most infamous cases of a bad difficulty spike is Battletoads on NES. Stage 3, Turbo Tunnel, is an incredibly fast, do or die speeder bike section that completely contrasts the previous two stages. But interestingly enough, that's one of 3 crazy difficulty spikes in the game. The 2nd is stage 10, Rat Race, where you have to win 3 races down a shaft against a rat, that borders on ludicrous speed by the third race, and phases through platforms if you off-screen him. The third, stage 11, Clinger Winger, is somehow even worse. Its another race, only you are being constantly chased by a giant ball on a track that you have to match the direction you are driving with the direction on the d-pad. It borders on frame perfect, and being just a little slow on your reactions means you have to start the entire stage over, since there are no checkpoints except for the boss fight.
Yakuza Kiwami is easily the worst example of a difficulty spike I’ve seen in recent memory. Even when playing on hard mode most of the game is relatively easy until you reach the boss fights. At that point, it’ll just throw in a bunch of enemies at once and expect you to not get pelted by attacks. Since the game has an auto-locking system, taking on multiple foes at once is nigh on impossible. There’s also this car chase sequence with awful controls and no access to healing items.
