What is the cheapest difficulty you've faced in a game?

[Ceremony]

I've been playing the remastered Uncharted collection for the last few weeks. Bluepoint, the team that handled the port, added an extra difficulty mode called Brutal. This went above the Easy/Normal/Hard/Crushing modes available in the base game.

Someone made a bit of a mess somewhere with the numbers however, as this video demonstrates:



I've beaten hard games and I've beaten cheap games. Vanquish and World at War come to mind, respectively. This however is on another level entirely. It's worth pointing out that video is from chapter 14 of Uncharted 2. I made it about halfway through chapter 3 and it took me an hour before I gave up. Chapters 1 and 2 don't have any enemies in them.

It's one thing when a game's difficult, it's another when it's physically impossible to move without being killed after you spawn. Is there anything out there more broken and unfair than this?

Click to read more...

 

[Gardner McKay]

There is a battle in FFT that was like that. The battle where you had to save Rafa on the roof top IIRC. Celia and Lede go before you do and the game can end before you even get a turn.

 

[KingBran]

I once paused Mega Man 2 to go get something to drink. Hit Create Save Point by mistake with a lazer from Quick Mans level headed steaight for my face.

Wouldn't have been so bad if it wasn't MM2 where you can beat the game in about 2 hours.

 

[Suxnet]

There is a battle in FFT that was like that. The battle where you had to save Rafa on the roof top IIRC. Celia and Lede go before you do and the game can end before you even get a turn.

Oh yeah I remember that one. They're fast as hell and have insta-death chance skills. And you gotta deal with Elmdor using draw out as well.

Damn I wanna play FFT again now.

 

[GlassesJacketShirt]

This might get me some looks, but I think the majority of COD games under the highest difficulty level run into these types of cheap moments regularly. The campaigns are barely balanced for hardened, with the hit scan guns and grenade-a-thons, and veteran(+) puts this to a breaking point.

 

[Frankie Spankie]

I'm not going to lie that Uncharted video was actually so stupid it was funny. They clearly didn't even test the game if they thought that was a good idea...

I don't normally play games on the hardest difficulty because it's always just BS like this. It's way more frustrating than it is rewarding at this point. The only game I even remember playing at hardest difficulty recently was the new Wolfenstein games. Those definitely had their cheap moments, not as bad as this, but I liked the gameplay enough that I muscled through the cheapness.

 

[PeteWorrell]

Stuff like that Uncharted video shows how some people confuse hard with cheap. It is like people who do not understand genuine horror and just cheaply use jump scares in their horror movies. When you have to pray that the RNG does not get you this time, it is not a test of skills but how big of a glutton for punishment you are.

Ys games can be pretty damn hard but Chester in Ys: The Oath in Felghana on Nightmare was ridiculous. He does a ton of damage to you while you can barely damage him and you cannot heal. It was a complete endurance test.

 

[NyQuil]

I remember the old EA Sports NHL hockey for like PS1 where on All-Star, the game would try to keep the score close no matter how many shots the computer took.

So your opposition would float in a backhander from outside the blueline and it would go past your goalie.

My goalies would have save percentages of like 40% at the end of a game after the other team would score on 3 of 5 shots.

 

[syz]

Any SNK fighting game final boss.

 

[Ceremony]

This might get me some looks, but I think the majority of COD games under the highest difficulty level run into these types of cheap moments regularly. The campaigns are barely balanced for hardened, with the hit scan guns and grenade-a-thons, and veteran(+) puts this to a breaking point.

If you type "world at war grenades" into youtube you realise this isn't that controversial an opinion.

 

[Rodgerwilco]

There is a battle in FFT that was like that. The battle where you had to save Rafa on the roof top IIRC. Celia and Lede go before you do and the game can end before you even get a turn.

Soooo f***ing annoying, that battle. lmao.

For me, it's gotta be CoD: World at War on the hardest difficulty. One of the levels where you're going through a tunnel and you come to an opening where there are enemies in the tunnel and also on the ledge of an opening above you. Took me 2+ hours just to get past this part alone. World at War was the first, and last, game that I tried to play on the hardest difficulty.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

Timesplitters 2 single player on the hardest difficulty really stands out in my memories.

Pretty impressive with how mediocre the game was.

 

[Hammettf2b]

Akuma in Super Turbo

 

[The Crypto Guy]

I dont play any games on hard so i have no idea.

I play for the enjoyment. If it's too difficult where it takes me 2 hours to complete a stage then I lose interest way too fast.

Though back in the day when I was a kid, some of those NES and SNES games if i remember correctly only had one play setting and some of those games were hard AF. But i had more patience back then haha.

 

[x Tame Impala]

I think Souls-like games in general do this and I don't enjoy playing them. Constricted movement and perfectly timed attacks/dodges make for a very tedious gameplay experience for me personally

 

[PK Cronin]

Mike Tyson's Punch Out?

 

[Static]

Ashina elite in sekiro.

 

[Prairie Habs]

Getting to the Darkest Dungeon in Darkest Dungeon. It was an early access game and the DD wasn't there when the game initially launched. Assembling a full roster of seemingly unbeatable characters only to get trounced and squad wiped was brutal.

"Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer"

 

[WarriorOfGandhi]

reminds me of the jackal snipers in Halo 2. On legendary difficulty they one-shotted you. That one alleyway in the second level you turn a corner and there's like ten of them, it took me forever to beat that part.