Favorite Difficulty Spikes

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

Crossing a bridge in the first Dragon Warrior game.

LOL no joke there. Those bridges meant business.

Actually, dragon warrior was just kind of made of difficulty spikes, unless you wanted to grind even more than you already had to. You were always encouraged to push ahead into areas that were just a little too hard for you.

 

[Ulfhednar]

LOL no joke there. Those bridges meant business.

The first video game I ever played was Zelda II: the Adventure of Link, and the overworld map in that game looks very similar in style to early DW games. It had some jumps in difficulty, but they all made sense in terms of the map - you go into a palace or a cave, and things get harder.

The second game I ever played was DW1 (yes, with the accompanying NP subscription) and I remember very distinctly crossing a bridge and rage quitting for the first time ever.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

LOL no joke there. Those bridges meant business.

The first video game I ever played was Zelda II: the Adventure of Link, and the overworld map in that game looks very similar in style to early DW games. It had some jumps in difficulty, but they all made sense in terms of the map - you go into a palace or a cave, and things get harder.

The second game I ever played was DW1 (yes, with the accompanying NP subscription) and I remember very distinctly crossing a bridge and rage quitting for the first time ever.

Death mountain in Zelda 2 was a huge difficulty spike, now that you mention it. You had to make it through all those horrible caves. But yeah, usually the more difficult areas were segregated off by caves or boulders you had to smash, so you generally weren't suddenly surprised by a hard encounter.

 

[Gastrick]

In Xenogears where this boss pops up and my team didn't learn enough combos,


Also, level 6-2 of Ninja Gaiden 1, especially this part,

 

[laclongquan]

Silent Storms and Silent Storm Sentinels, when the mecha exoskeleton appear for the 1st time. It's a serious diff spike because one day you fight infantry, the next you fight mini/light tank with no warning. It's not that you dont have tool, because heavy MG and explosives are there. It just that you lack warning, like, who would bring antimateriel weapons against chunky meatbags, right?

Fallout 3/FNV-TTW: The appearance of Albino Radscorpion and SM Overlords, because they are freaking double tougher than lower class. But the tools are there and even earlier. You just need to accept that mininuke, while OP compared to normal riffraff, is necessary to each encounter. The key is probabbly level 16 when Enclave patrol teams start popping up along with Albino and Overlords. Their DR are high. but one mininuke can cut down their HP to halve, and just pumping ammo onto them and done~

Icewind Dale 2, Heart of Fury mode, which can be compared to fighting enemies 10 level higher. So one minute you are fighting last dungeon with Half Goblins here and there... the next minute you fight New Game HOF and halfgoblins popping up all over the early dungeons.

Fallout Tactics also has difficulty spike, but mostly because you have not much warning to equip correct weapons with correct personel.

Fallout 1, Necropolis, Water Shed. Meeting Super Mutants there the first time (if you follow main quest and not wander much) can be a big shock after getting too used to normal human hostiles and armorless wildlife. In comparison F2 dont have much spike because you get foreshadowed waaaaaay earlier, with Agent Frank Horrigan in a cutscene. Normally after that cutscene players would be scared shitless and would/should carry a last-ditch expensive defensive weapons that can be thrown out to delay enemy and escape

 

[Norfleet]

I remember one game had this major difficulty spike, where you were previously travelling across a map that had no spikes, and then bam, suddenly literal spikes and you could die. That's what I call a difficulty spike. There were spikes suddenly, and this added difficulty. OBVIOUSLY a difficulty spike. They were pretty cool, because you could punch enemies into the spikes, and they, too, would die.

 

[Disciple]

The first encounter with a hunter in Resident Evil. The aquators that will rust your armor whenever they hit you in Rogue. Doom II, level 7 (Dead Simple): the first level to feature Mancubi and Arachnotrons.

 

[Reinhardt]

Final fight in Toxic Treatment in DDO. You enter room - lol, just named beholder, i've killed hundreds of his kin already. Then you hit him once or twice and suddenly he's protected by barrier and there are dozens of eyes spawning everywhere and they spam their unblockable force damage spells. And then you are ded.

 

[Bigg Boss]

World 7 in Super Mario Bros. 3.
The first synth in Wasteland 2.
Past day thirty or so in Don't Starve.
The Temple of Trials in Fallout 2.

Last one is a joke.

 

[Cadmus]

I hate difficulty spikes and boss fights in general. Fuck boss fights.
The whole Dark souls genre would be better with only general mobs without any gay bosses.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

I hate difficulty spikes and boss fights in general. Fuck boss fights.
The whole Dark souls genre would be better with only general mobs without any gay bosses.

Indeed, it's like how Super Mario was a great game except all that damn platforming, right?

 

[Cadmus]

I hate difficulty spikes and boss fights in general. Fuck boss fights.
The whole Dark souls genre would be better with only general mobs without any gay bosses.

Indeed, it's like how Super Mario was a great game except all that damn platforming, right?

Yes, I hate the fucking platformers. Fucking annoying as fuck and boring.

 

[Falksi]

 

[Morenatsu.]

I hate difficulty spikes and boss fights in general. Fuck boss fights.
The whole Dark souls genre would be better with only general mobs without any gay bosses.

Indeed, it's like how Super Mario was a great game except all that damn platforming, right?

Yes, I hate the fucking platformers. Fucking annoying as fuck and boring.

I hate RPG games and stats in general. Fuck stats.
The whole RPG genre would be better with only awesome buttons without any gay stats.

 

[Cadmus]

I hate difficulty spikes and boss fights in general. Fuck boss fights.
The whole Dark souls genre would be better with only general mobs without any gay bosses.

Indeed, it's like how Super Mario was a great game except all that damn platforming, right?

Yes, I hate the fucking platformers. Fucking annoying as fuck and boring.

I hate RPG games and stats in general. Fuck stats.
The whole RPG genre would be better with only awesome buttons without any gay stats.

But I like RPGs and stats. But I hate bosses and platforming because they are ghay.

 

[Pathfinder: Kingmaker]

#1 - Wizardry 8 Arnika Road

Honorable mentions:

Metal Gear Rising Revengeance - final boss of the main game and DLC content
Jedi Outcast - unavoidable one-shotting snipers in Nar Shadda

 

[Cadmus]

#1 - Wizardry 8 Arnika Road

Honorable mentions:

Metal Gear Rising Revengeance - final boss of the main game and DLC content
Jedi Outcast - unavoidable one-shotting snipers in Nar Shadda

How are these your favourite?
Despite many warnings I never experienced anything strange on the Arnika road, dunno why,
But the Nar Shadda part was fucking horribly annoying and ghay.
MGS:R was ghay by itself.

 

[Corbin Dallas Multipass]

Duriel in Diablo 2 was one of the more insane difficulty spikes. Half because he was legitimately really strong, the other half being that you might just get killed before you're finished loading.

Butcher in Diablo 1 was largely the same deal, including the lag spike for some people when it loaded his voice line "Fresh Meat!"

Both bosses were fast moving, meaning no kiting, and hit like trucks, meaning facetanking was problematic. You just had to have good enough defense to tank the hits or enough offense to kill him before he killed you.

 

[Pathfinder: Kingmaker]

How are these your favourite?
Despite many warnings I never experienced anything strange on the Arnika road, dunno why,
But the Nar Shadda part was fucking horribly annoying and ghay.
MGS:R was ghay by itself.

I though "favourite" in the thread title was ironic, nevermind. All three suck btw (and negatively impact the overall quality of otherwise great games)

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Hearts of Stone -- and to a lesser degree, Blood & Wine. Both DLCs have far better encounters/bosses/AI/enemies in general than the base game.
Base game wasn't very challenging at all, so I wasn't really expecting it.

 

[Egosphere]

Sen's Fortress

 

[Parsimonious cook]

That race in Mafia took me many, many tries to complete back in the day. Finally doing it was like winning the lottery.

Ah fuck... some painfull memories here. On the related note the first Vietcong game (made by many people who also worked on Mafia) had two similar massive difficulty spikes, the tunnel missions. Much like the Mafia race, both of them were real showstoppers.

I would also add Bonehoard and Haunted Cathedral in Thief 1, I always stopped there for a long time as a kid, since I was scared shitlles by the undead.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

That level in Eye of the Beholder 2, where you cannot rest because nightmares.

The whole Chaos Strikes Back, after playing Dungeon Master.

 

[Hag]

Just remembered the Lugaru level with the three werewolves. One werewolf being a tough beast that instakill you, and that you have to hit several times to kill, no mistake allowed, and they break combos.
And now three of them at the same time. Good fun.

That was a nice little game, kind of underrated if fighting is your thing.

 

[Zlaja]

Remember me, cucks?

Honorable mention: