/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.7985551]

What's the most jarring difficulty spike in a video game?

[Anonymous No.7985580]

Kid Icarus, stage 1-1

[Anonymous No.7985610]

Battletoads - Turbo Tunnel

[Anonymous No.7985613]

The entirety of Super Robot Wars 3 on the SNES. It's a massive jump in difficulty from the second one. Other games have spikes in their difficulty but none so marked as SRW3.

[Anonymous No.7985631]

[Anonymous No.7985637]

>>7985631
Sorry wrong image.

[Anonymous No.7985670]

>>7985551
You need
>Kid mode

[Anonymous No.7985729]

>>7985610
This.
Also, Spiderman PS1 when you have to catch the green goblin or something.
Playing RE3 on hard atm and was finding it pretty fucking easy, until Nemesis blew up a chopper and now I have to beat him with no health packs (and he does damage to you in a fucking cutscene). Tried like 20 times today, but no cigar.

[Anonymous No.7985745]

>>7985729
Learn how to time the dodge, you can either dodge with fire button? I think, when you are aiming, or you can just press aim button instead. I've found it much easier to dodge with aiming. Mash buttons like a mad fucker when he grabs you and when you are laying down, it'll help you get up faster, how fast you are getting up is depended on your health remaining.
Running away is pretty useless, so just focus on reading his attacks and dodging him.
Nemesis is one of those things where rage inducing horseshit first time through, but not that big of a deal when you replay the game.
Good luck, you can do it.

[Anonymous No.7985758]

>>7985729
>Also, Spiderman PS1 when you have to catch the green goblin or something.

Green Goblin never appeared in the PS1 games tho? The Shocker boss fight in the sequel was ridiculous bullshit because of the finnicky auto-aim.

[Anonymous No.7985782]

>>7985670
But I'm already at full health

[Anonymous No.7985805]

>>7985758
Must have been venom then.
>>7985745
Yeah - I'm trying to dodge. Does it work for all weapon types? It seems to just happen randomly - and then when I expect it will work (when I have a clear view of Nemesis and he's about to attack) and I press R1 - nothing happens. I just get hit. Then he grabs me, throws me on the ground - I button mash every single button - but usually he just picks me up off the ground and throws me again. Rinse, repeat :(

[Anonymous No.7985902]

>>7985805
Man, fuck this shit.
Tried another 15 times.
I'm moving on to Resi4.

[Anonymous No.7985921]

>>7985902
Should do code veronica next, which will give you an appreciation for how much better 3 is.

[Anonymous No.7985973]

>>7985805
It's not random you just have to learn the frame for each attack when dodge works. It's a consistent mechanic. Don't mash buttons like a retard

[Anonymous No.7985974]

>>7985921
Sell me on it.
I was actually looking at playing RE0 before moving on to RE4. The idea of controlling multiple characters with different attributes sounds interesting, plus being able to drop items anywhere.
What does Code Veronica do better than 3? It doesn't have pre-rendered graphics, which is not a mark in its favour for me personally.

[Anonymous No.7985982]

>>7985973
>Don't mash buttons like a retard
I'm not you faggot. I said I was mashing buttons to get up off the ground - which it says to do.
I press R1 to dodge when Nemesis is gearing up for an attack, but usually nothing happens. I've had more success after switching from Grenade Launcher to Magnum - but it's not enough. I don't feel like I'm getting any better at it, and I can't be arsed getting kicked back to the menu and watching cutscenes over and over to get better at it. It's not fun.

[Anonymous No.7985987]

>>7985982
You don't dodge nemesis with R1, you dodge with the action button while holding R1. There are 2 escapes, R1 and R1+Action. R1 escape is for zombies.
When he is about to bitch slap you hit the action button.
It takes some practice but you will get it.

[Anonymous No.7985989]

Kid mode. KIDMODE K
i
D
m
O
d
E

[Anonymous No.7986006]

You get a nice beat em up for the first two levels and then the game goes full on hardcore mode, i've only managed to beat the turbo tunnel once without cheating

[Anonymous No.7986015]

>>7985987
RE3 Manual: "Dodge - Press the R1 button or R2 button the moment the enemy attack you. (You cannot dodge when you are severely wounded).

[Anonymous No.7986024]

>>7985670
>>7985989
kid-a mode-a

[Anonymous No.7986026]

>>7986015
It is literally in the game bro, the first fuckin file you read

[Anonymous No.7986028]

>>7985729
>finding it pretty fucking easy
>now I have to beat him with no health packs
If it's so easy how do you have no healing items left?

Also, he doesn't actually damage you in that cutscene. You just get 'virus' overriding your health meter which means you need to rely on Jill's body language to tell what health level you're at.

[Anonymous No.7986053]

>>7986026
Yes. Press R1 or R2 buttons. OR Press the action button while aiming.
>>7986028
>If it's so easy how do you have no healing items left?
Got stuck for a bit on the bronze compass puzzle. Ended up backtracking to the very start of the game to see if I missed a place to put it, and while I was rewarded with extra ammo for going back there, there wasn't a single health pack.
>you need to rely on Jill's body language to tell what health level you're at.
Well, I start the fight and she is already limping.

[Anonymous No.7986072]

>>7986053
If the fight really is giving you that much trouble, it might be quicker for you to just restart the game and be a bit more conservative with your first aid sprays + herbs.

[Anonymous No.7986081]

X-COM: UFO Defense.

You generally get your ass kicked for a good while at the start until you get better weapons.

[Anonymous No.7986131]

>>7986072
Yeah. I was thinking the same. Sucks tho.
Wish there was a way to craft health packs, maybe exchange ammo powder for some herb seeds. I've got shit-loads of guns and ammo. There are two RED herbs outside the save room just mocking me.
But yeah, this is impossible as is. Even watched a guide on dodging: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdJoPZcsZ4s
But the arena is just too cramped and awkward, and Nemesis is in 2nd phase.

[Anonymous No.7986183]

>>7986072
>>7986131

playing the game for the first time, completely blind, I had to reset two times before I finally was able to beat the game. No shame. It goes very quickly.

[Anonymous No.7986386]

The level after is an even bigger pleb filter, then it basically goes back to normal.

[Anonymous No.7986421]

>>7985551
>Huge compared to first dungeon
>Poison and Paralysis inflicting monsters everywhere
>Splits into two opposite directions at the start
>No quick exit or access to the "Exit" spell = mandatory backtracking
Surprised pic related hasn't been posted already. Hope you brought a Tent and lots of Antidote.

[Anonymous No.7986432]

>>7986421
I only played the first half or so of this game, but he's right, this cave* was a total slog.

*game

[Anonymous No.7986580]

>>7985902
Protip for that fight Anon, Nemesis can get caught in statues. Look up knife-only runs.

[Anonymous No.7987287]

Those exploding trees in Earthbound were annoying

[Anonymous No.7987303]

>>7986421
at least the music is good

[Anonymous No.7987380]

What's the opposite of a difficulty spike? Where things reach an absolutely easy point to the point of almost feeling insulting? Like the Wily stages in Megaman 3?

[Anonymous No.7987396]

>>7986421
Dont forget that part on the Giant's Cave where every step triggers a battle against giants.
Ever. Single. Step.

[Anonymous No.7987408]

>>7987380
The Forgotten Capital of FF7 since there are no enemies is the closest that comes to mind

[Anonymous No.7987410]

>>7987380
>Like the Wily stages in Megaman 3?
To be fair, by the point you already have all weapons and Rush powerups you may need to power your way through.

[Anonymous No.7987419]

>>7985580
this

[Anonymous No.7987431]

>>7985580
>>7987419
1-3 is the biggest peak in difficulty

[Anonymous No.7987790]

>>7987287
At least they only blow up when you kill them, the coffee cups in the fourside mall effectively do nothing but blow up every round

[Anonymous No.7987797]

The two guys before him are hard, but...

[Anonymous No.7987808]

>>7985613
Tried replaying 3 recently and sometimes I wonder how the series even made it past the SNES era given how clunky and unrefined they were and just how much it all depended on RNG.

[Anonymous No.7987824]

Miguel in Chrono Cross

[Anonymous No.7987826]

>>7987808
Easy, 4 and EX were already in development at the time.

[Anonymous No.7987830]

>>7985551
Agni and Rudra in DMC3 are real bastards until you get the parry timing down.

[Anonymous No.7987838]

>>7985974
>What does Code Veronica do better than 3
Nothing really, CV was a low point for the series but it was nowhere near as forgettable as 6.

[Anonymous No.7987876]

>>7985902
It was the high-point, due to the great base atmosphere. It is easily one of the best RE games of all time. It also has the most soul out of the entire series.

0 is shit, though. It is an objectively bad game. I would rather do work than replay 0.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1o_3yBe6Cg&t=2037s&ab_channel=WhoamIbutwhoareyou

[Anonymous No.7988032]

>>7987380
Power creep I guess? Or just bad game balance. Bioshock 1 It was released for Microsoft Windows [...] platforms in August 2007 basically completely gives up on being challenging by the time you get the chemical thrower, even on hard it's kind of a joke.

[Anonymous No.7988073]

>>7987380
For the rest of the game or just a lull in difficulty for one section?

[Anonymous No.7988092]

>>7986421
The Ice Cave is worse. It's all luck whether you're going to meet Dark Wizards and if they're going to fuck you up or not. If they do it's guaranteed game over, and you're better off going through the cave multiple times so you collect stuff little by little

[Anonymous No.7988107]

>>7985902
you're a fucking pussy. get good and finish the game. glad a fag like you got filtered.

[Anonymous No.7988118]

the last castle in dragon quest 2

[Anonymous No.7988182]

>>7987830
not Cerberus before them? on a first playthrough you have hardly any purchased skills, Rebellion, ebony and ivory and the shotgun

[Anonymous No.7988702]

>>7988182
Cerberus isn't really that rough, he's the "Do not button mash" boss.

[Anonymous No.7988810]

>>7987380
MGS series is plagued with this-

tranq gun in MGS2
camo in MGS3
octocamo in MGS4
buddies & fulton in MGSV

in order to just actually be able to play the game in MGSV I've got to ban using any of the buddies, ban calling in any item drops, keep all items at Level 1, etc etc etc. You are just insanely OP in that game to the point of it being broken, but I dont want to turn this into a MGSV vent thread...

[Anonymous No.7988845]

LA and Paris each took a day to beat, Tokyo took me 2 weeks.

[Anonymous No.7988853]

any snk fighter past round 3

[Anonymous No.7988859]

>>7987408
it's not like there's any difficult part before that

[Anonymous No.7988864]

>>7985551
>laughs at your pathetic attempts to survive

[Anonymous No.7988954]

Macross Scrambled Valkyrie is just an empire state building diffculty spike after another until you memorize what it throws at you

Still one of my favorite shoot em ups tho

[Anonymous No.7989323]

>>7985551
Level 3 in Road Rash. Hard.

[Anonymous No.7989967]

>>7985580
Yeah kid icarus 1-1 then 1-2 then 1-3 get progressively harder then it gets easier from there out. Craziest design ever

[Anonymous No.7990003]

>>7987380
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

By the time you reach Dracula in the inverted castle Alucard is nigh-invincible from leveling up and the weapons and spells acquired.

[Anonymous No.7990007]

>>7987396
I don't think I ever found that.

[Anonymous No.7990128]

>>7986421
Marsh Cave is challenging but manageable, the peak of difficulty in this game is between Earth Cave and especially Ice Cave, and then it just drops completely with the item magic. Pretty common occurrence now that I think about it.
I played TLoZ Second Quest recently and the only difficult moments were at the very beginning (Level 2) and midway through the game (Level 6). Beside those dungeons most of the challenge comes from searching for shops, grinding for money and bombs, and looking for heart containers.

[Anonymous No.7990147]

VP1

[Anonymous No.7990192]

>>7990147
Lezard's tower is pretty bad too with the dragon tooth warriors and glowflies

[Anonymous No.7990347]

>>7990192
You are right but here's protipz:
Well both the Gleaming Sword and Dragon Slayer (1 of 2 in the game) one hit Tooth Warriors with 0% change of breaking, use them. But yeah at this point you MUST dodge the glowflies or fucking die. I tested this out in both Hard and Normal, you still have to run with the better shit and chars you get in Hard.

[Anonymous No.7990732]

probably not really a difficulty spike as much as a gentle early game filtering, but as a kid when i played ff8 i was too young/dumb to engage with the junction system at all so i kind of just brute forced my way through until the fake president fight was just a brick wall for me

[Anonymous No.7990890]

>>7986006
This is honestly one of the easier levels. Rat Race fucked me up as a kid (in co-op)

[Anonymous No.7990948]

>>7987380
>What's the opposite of a difficulty spike?
Difficulty dip?

Played Doom 2016 recently, the super shotgun is so busted there's no reason to use anything else once it's obtained. It felt like cheating, didn't help that most other guns were garbage.

Most rpgs can hit a dip if the player over-grinds. Sometimes it stays a dip and sometimes there's a ridiculous spike after a lull.

[Anonymous No.7991023]

I call this guy "the final boss of Morrowind" because unprepared new players often get fucked up by him on the road to the first main quest dungeon.

[Anonymous No.7992089]

>>7991023
very true

[Anonymous No.7992092]

>>7987380
As previously mentioned, Kid Icarus has a reverse difficulty curve

[Anonymous No.7992114]

That mage assassin nigger who one shots you maybe 2 hours in baldur's gate 1. When you enter the inn in the first town after you start the adventure.
Stopped the game here as a kid because I had only a party of 2 and he would destroy me even with save states.

[Anonymous No.7993191]

>>7988092
>mages/fighter enemies that spam Fire3 and shit
>Sorcerers that instakill
>effectively run through it 2 times in a row
>cockatrices that turn you to stone
ice cave is horseshit

[Anonymous No.7993193]

>>7991023
fuck that guy

[Anonymous No.7993203]

Mission 7 is on another plane of horseshit.

[Anonymous No.7993215]

>>7985631
Is this some kind of meme or what? This guy is not hard at all. I can't believe Mega Man fans of all people get filtered so easily by him.

[Anonymous No.7993217]

>>7986006
Does using the portal count as cheating? Once I learned where it was I could get there every time.

[Anonymous No.7993602]

>>7993203
I'd argue Mission 5 on Very Hard is even worse.
You can't even snake in that tunnel.

[Anonymous No.7993651]

>>7991023
He's the guy that prompted me to play the intended way, i.e. fuck off on a hike across the entire Vvardenfell and take on a bunch of guild quests for fun and profit.
This might be his intended role now that I think of it.

[Anonymous No.7993691]

tutorial filters most people, and it's a challenge throughout but then the last level is on another level and nearly impossible

[Anonymous No.7993903]

>>7993602
I agree, but if you're just playing on Normal, you likely don't know snaking, and mission 5's definitely easier on normal than 7 is on normal.

[Anonymous No.7994580]

>>7993903
Oh, in that case you're absolutely right.
Swear it took me more than a couple hours combined to beat that mission the first time round.

[Anonymous No.7994589]

>>7994580
Outside of story mode, pic related. Platinum Cup ain't too bad once you pass Cosmo Terminal, but once you get here? Good luck. You could grab 1st easy on the entire cup and be lucky to even hit 25th place here.

[Anonymous No.7994617]

>>7994589
>Last lap on Phantom Road
>Get to the end area with the unguarded recharge strips
>Get nudged at the top of the curve
>Lose traction
>Gravity takes the wheel
>OFF COURSE!
>RETARD

[Anonymous No.7994623]

>>7994617
>reset the entire GP until the Arrows and Twin Norrita and Red Gazelle aren't in it to have the best chance of 1st on Phantom Road
>on final turn on second lap
>the fucking Wild Boar sails over me like it just grew wings
>flies off the track and then flies back onto the track

If that's not cheating, i don't know what is. I even have the replay but i've never made a webm of anything. Somehow I won that race but seeing that was like catching a UFO on camera.

[Anonymous No.7994658]

>>7994623
I want to witness this bullshit. Record it with your phone if you have to.

Going off memory this is the lazy way to make webms.
>Download either Boram or Handbrake.
>Set Codec as VP8 (not VP9 because...I guess the admin is lazy?)
>Remove the audio if you don't want it on /wsg/, change the audio Codec to Opus if you do.
>Keep it under the board's filesize. It's either 3 or 4mb, and you'll need to fuck with the quality for a while. I reduce the framerate to 30 > and reduce the resolution of the video slowly until it fits.

[Anonymous No.7994708]

>>7994658
i'm busy but i'll try this shit later, i have the save on dolphin

[Anonymous No.7994717]

>>7994708
All good, this board is slow anyway.

[Anonymous No.7995127]

>>7994658
handbrake keeps nagging me to install .net even after i do, fuck that. How about something that simply records the screen?

[Anonymous No.7995156]

>>7994717
fuck the webms, i'm uploading it to youtube, works about as well

[Anonymous No.7995191]

>>7994658
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOQoByRBZAQ
Here you go, still the most bullshit thing I've ever seen in a game

[Anonymous No.7995347]

>>7986386
this guy gets it, fuck that level. for that matter, water stages are almost always shittier than land stages.

[Anonymous No.7995447]

>>7986386
snot a problem is way more bullshit than this

[Anonymous No.7995469]

>>7993691
the presidents run is pure luck

[Anonymous No.7996213]

>>7995191
Mother of god. That is some genuine horseshit.

[Anonymous No.7996341]

>>7996213
I'd like to point out that Master level AI has double the drift power. Normally this doesn't matter much because you can just Quick Turn on the ground, but you can't in the air. You do what the Wild Boar did in that video, you die, even if you're a TAS.

[Anonymous No.7997351]

>>7987380
Like Kid Icarus mentioned before, Metroid 1 is really intimidating at the start due to how weak Samus is, then gets progressively easier as you collect powerups. Once you get the Screw Attack you're basically invincible for the rest of the game, and it comes before both miniboss hideouts.
Note this is for a player who already knows their way around the game, actually finding your way around is plenty of challenge for a new player, and they likely won't find the more powerful items like the Varia Suit and Screw Attack without outside help.

[Anonymous No.7997362]

>>7997351
dying in metroid 1 is ridiculously punishing for all the wrong reasons. Something as simple as a hp refill at the start of an area would completely solve that game's biggest issue. Or just respawning with full hp.

[Anonymous No.7997365]

>>7985551
Can't think of any difficulty spikes that are jarring, and smooth curves are overrated

[Anonymous No.7997386]

>>7997362
Yeah, why make death feel threatening in a game all about intimidating hostile atmosphere

[Anonymous No.7999814]

reported and saged

[Anonymous No.7999884]

>>7990147

[Anonymous No.7999973]

>>7997351
None of the early areas in Metroid have anything particularly dangerous in them, so I'm not sure I agree. You won't be dying much unless you're deliberately refusing to keep your HP up.

[Anonymous No.8001060]

>>7993215
He's not the hardest but he's the first wake-up call boss after a fairly easy introduction.

[Anonymous No.8001061]

>>8001060

[Anonymous No.8002186]

>>7995191
WHAT THE FUCK
I thought you were describing ridiculous rubberbanding
But that car quite literally skipped half the track like it was a speedrunner

[Anonymous No.8002193]

>>8001060
>>8001061
I love the dialogue in project x zone. I thought it would be cringe but it's based.

[Anonymous No.8002214]

>>7985551
system shock 2 operations deck
Grenade hybrids, giant spiders and cyber assassins assault you from everywhere.