History Main / SchizophrenicDifficulty

** ''VideoGame/{{Sonic Rush|Series}}'' also does this, though how strong it is depends on the character. It's not as bad for Sonic, but there is still a case of it as his fairly easy fifth stage, Huge Crisis, is placed in between the maddeningly annoying Night Carnival and the extremely dangerous Altitude Limit. However, it's terrible for Blaze since her level order is different. The aformentioned Night Carnival is her ''first'' stage, then things get much easier until Altitude Limit, which is her fifth stage, then Huge Crisis comes after that, giving her a nice break before Dead Line, the final regular stage.

** ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' also has difficulty issues. It starts out fairly challenging, gets extremely easy after Happy Happy, gets hard when you reach the mines and stays hard all the way through Moonside, drops insanely low all the way through Scaraba, gets a bit more challenging in Deep Darkness, and finally gets pretty nasty once you reach Fire Spring through the end.

* ''VideoGame/AngryBirds'' and its many iterations frequently suffer from this, despite the difficulty gradually increasing overall. It's not uncommon for a puzzle to be very straightforward and provide plenty of special Bird types to fully level whatever structure the Pigs are sheltering in, then the next to give you only three Red Birds (the type with no special effect) to knock down a fortress that's 90% rock with multiple Helmeted Pigs dug in underneath like ticks, forcing you to rely on the sometimes-wonky physics engine to indirectly take them all out. After taking dozens of tries to beat this, then the next area will just feature a row of Pigs all lined up behind a tall, easily-collapsed tower and give you five Black or Yellow Birds with which to topple it.

* ''VideoGame/AngryBirds'' and its many iterations frequently suffer from this, despite the difficulty gradually increasing overall. It's not uncommon for a puzzle to be very straightforward and provide plenty of special Bird types to fully level whatever structure the Pigs are sheltering in, then the next to give you only three Red Birds (the type with no special effect) to knock down a fortress that's 90% rock with multiple Pigs dug in underneath like ticks. After taking dozens of tries to beat this, then the next area will just feature a row of Pigs all lined up behind a tall, easily-collapsed tower and give you five Black or Yellow Birds with which to topple it.

* ''VideoGame/AngryBirds'' and its many iterations frequently suffer from this, despite the difficulty gradually increasing overall. It's not uncommon for a puzzle to be very straightforward and provide plenty of special Bird types to fully level whatever structure the Pigs are sheltering in, then the next to give you only three Red Birds (the type with no special effect) to knock down a fortress that's 90% rock with multiple pigs dug in underneath like ticks. After taking dozens of tries to beat this, then the next area will just feature a row of Pigs all lined up behind a tall, easily-collapsed tower and give you five Black or Yellow Birds with which to topple it.

* ''VideoGame/SoulBlade'''s Edge Master Mode has several points where the challenge you have to accomplish is much harder than the one after it. Examples being those that require you to use a certain move (especially hit your opponent in the air), those that require you to defeat your opponent against a time limit or with limited health, and the Colosseum matches.

* ''VideoGame/{{Tekken}} 2'' has a point around Stage 5 where the difficult level suddenly hikes, especially if you are fighting against Law. After this, it usually isn't too difficult. This is because the fifth level forms the mid-boss, even though at this stage it wasn't mentioned.

* ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic IX'' had this, mainly because it was only [[ObviousBeta half-finished]] as shipped and the resulting gameplay had some rather noticeable flaws. The first part of the game seemed more neglected than anything else, resulting in a "tutorial" stage that was punishingly difficult due mostly to a lack of any sort of preparation. Trying to follow the "main path" of the game past that point led through a somewhat stable difficulty curve, but any sort of deviation from where the game automatically expected you to go quickly led to the discovery of numerous side quests which could be completed without placing your team in any form of danger whatsoever, making the rest of the first half of the game ludicrously easy. The difficulty eventually spikes back up out of nowhere before bottoming out again, and varies depending largely on which promotion quests you decide to do.

* The first half of survival horror game ''VideoGame/ColdFear'' has lots of tight corridors, a dash of CameraScrew, and takes place on a small whaling ship rocking back and forth in a storm, making it impossible to walk in a straight line, much less shoot with any accuracy. The second half has much more powerful enemies, but disposes with all the things that made the first half so challenging.

* If you follow the main quest line in ''VideoGame/MightAndMagic VII'', you can run into some rather nasty surprises. First few quests are easy enough, but once you set for person who can repair the castle you're pointed to the The Stone City in Barrow Downs, the worst location to visit for low level party, as it is infested with undead and gargoyles, all of which can cause some sort of status effects. The quest you get there sends you to Red Dwarf Mines which are full of slimes immune to physical attacks, a difficult enemy to handle for begginer party (not to mention [[TakenForGranite Medusae]], but you don't have to visit the section with them). After this there is a chain of time-limited but optional (you miss only some experience and gold if you ignore them) that are still much easier to finish that what was before. This is followed by choice of path and the initiation quest is very hard in both cases, after which the game spikes down before making three last quests very difficult. The initial DifficultySpike is most likely there to encourage doing promotion quests and the like before advancing the story too fast.

* The Genesis ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' games are somewhat schizophrenic in their difficulty curves.

** ''VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink'' also gets criticized often on this aspect, with Death Mountain (an early-game area) is seen as ludicrously difficult, even by the game's standard.

* ''{{VideoGame/Doom}}'':
** The first two maps of the original game's fourth episode, Thy Flesh Consumed, are considered to be insanely difficult in comparison to the maps of the first three Episodes, then the difficulty scales way back down, until suddenly the third-to-last map you get a map arguably even harder than the first two, and then it ends in two more easy maps.

** The Playstation version of ''Final Doom'' is a mash up of parts of The Master Levels, TNT Evilution, and The Plutonia Experiment; Crescendos towards the end of each, then nosedives as you enter the next chapter.
** The Alpha Labs are probably the hardest area in ''VideoGame/Doom3'', mostly because you don't have many good weapons and it's filled with [[DemonicSpiders hitscanning zombie soldiers]]. The game gets much easier from thereon until it spikes again in Hell, and then the difficulty starts jumping all over the place.

** The levels form ''VideoGame/{{Halo Combat Evolved}}'' are, in order: easy -> medium -> very hard -> medium -> hard -> easy -> ballbusting sadomasochistic 10th circle of hell -> very hard-> hard -> easy.
** ''VideoGame/{{Halo 2}}'' is even more eratic with: very hard -> hard -> very hard -> easy -> hard -> medium -> very very hard -> medium -> easy -> agonizingly slit your wrists hard -> hard -> medium -> easy
** ''VideoGame/{{Halo 3}}'' starts with two very difficult levels back to back, then segues into several moderately difficult ones, than an easy one, and then the difficulty spikes into the stratosphere with Cortana before the much easier final level.

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioMaker''[='=]s 100 Mario Challenge in Expert mode: Due to the game's reliance on user-generated content. You frequently run into courses filled with FakeDifficulty, tight reaction times, haphazard enemy placement, etc. You can skip these courses, but you need to actually clear a course in order to truly progress. Fortunately for those striving for HundredPercentCompletion, the majority of the 30 Mystery Mushroom costumes randomly rewarded for beating this mode can be alternatively unlocked through Toys/{{amiibo}}[[labelnote:specifics]]Bowser, [[ChromeChampion Mario (Silver), Mario (Gold)]], [[VideoGame/YoshisWoollyWorld Mega Yarn Yoshi]], [[Franchise/{{Kirby}} King Dedede]], [[VideoGame/{{Metroid}} Zero Suit Samus]], [[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Lucina, Robin]], [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Lucario, Greninja]], [[VideoGame/{{Pikmin}} Captain Olimar]], [[Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda Zelda]], [[VideoGame/{{MOTHER3}} Lucas]], [[Franchise/{{Splatoon}} Inkling Boy, Inkling Girl]], [[VideoGame/AnimalCrossing Tom Nook, Rover, Kapp'n, Isabelle (Winter Outfit), Reese, Lottie]], [[UsefulNotes/GameAndWatch Mr. Game & Watch]], VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog, VideoGame/PacMan, [[VideoGame/PunchOut Little Mac]], [[VideoGame/StarFox Fox McCloud, and Falco Lombardi]][[/labelnote]], so at best you need three mandatory playthoughs to get the [[VideoGame/MarioBros Sidestepper, Shellcreeper, and Mario]] costumes.

* ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'' has this with the World of Light. There are an assortments of Spirits that have varying power levels based on their rarity; one-star and two-star Spirits are reasonable and copious, but three-star Spirits tend to serve as {{Beef Gate}}s to force the player to go around them, while four-star Spirits are often relegated to BonusBoss material. This means you should utilize the Gym and Spirit Board to get what you need for 100% completion while grinding through the chaff.

** The campaign of ''Dawn of War II'' fluctuates up and down for its entirety, along with a huge spike with the Argus Gate mission, a huge ''drop'' after acquiring [[PurposelyOverpowered the Dreadnought]] and a sufficiently leveled [[DifficultButAwesome Cyrus]], a spike into the stratosphere with the two {{Bonus Boss}}es, and another drop with the relatively easy final mission complete with AnticlimaxBoss. ''Chaos Rising'', however, is far more consistent in its difficulty curve.

* ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'' can be like this, thanks to its very complicated battle system. A hard boss battle might force you to learn how to use a gameplay mechanic you had been ignoring beforehand, and suddenly the rest of the game becomes easy until an increase in difficulty. Repeat until you get to the post-storyline content, which requires jumping back and forth between a bunch of {{Bonus Boss}}es while constantly switching your difficulty setting and HP around.

* While most of ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles2'' is EasyLevelsHardBosses, the [[BonusBoss superbosses]] have a severe case of this. Gladiator Orion, the lowest leveled one (100), is considered one of the hardest ones, while Tyrannotitan Kurodil, the highest leveled (130), is actually the easiest and can be easier to beat than some enemies under the player's level 99 cap.[[note]]In addition to high stats, higher-level enemies have invisible buffs and debuffs based on how much higher-leveled they are. Kurodil has none of those buffs, just his high stats, so he takes and does normal damage, no matter your level.[[/note]]

* In ''VideoGame/MortalKombatII'', Jade is a secret boss, with the [[SNKBoss cheap AI]] that you might expect from a boss. In ''[[UpdatedRerelease Ultimate]] VideoGame/MortalKombat3'', Jade is a selectable character, but the programmers never fixed her AI. Considering that it is almost entirely random when, or even if, you fight Jade in single player mode, she's a single-handed example of this trope.

** ''VideoGame/{{Halo Combat Evolved}}'' has: easy -> medium -> very hard -> medium -> hard -> easy -> ballbusting sadomasochistic 10th circle of hell -> very hard-> hard -> easy.
** The levels from ''VideoGame/{{Halo 2}}'' are, in order: very hard -> hard -> medium -> easy -> hard -> medium -> hard -> medium -> easy -> ultra-hard -> hard -> medium -> easy

** ''VideoGame/{{Halo Combat Evolved}}'' has: easy -> medium -> very hard -> medium -> hard -> easy -> ballbusting sadomasochistic 10th circle of hell -> very hard, hard -> easy.

* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert3: Uprising'''s Commander's Challenge mode has this in spades. Many levels -- though not all of them -- have one or more "gimmicks" associated with them: one mission is [[TankGoodness Tanks Only]], one features enemies that attack only with [[GratuitousNinja ninja]], one gives you a set of [[StoneWall powerful but immobile]] towers, etc. Depending on how well a given player's favored, practiced tactics work on a particular level, they can go from trivial to maddening and back again. Worse, the game unlocks new units with each mission, and the missions are largely nonlinear; two runs of the ''same mission'' can be wildly different in difficulty if you unlocked a [[TacticalRockPaperScissors particularly effective unit]] in the meantime.
* Flash TD game ''Cursed Treasure -- Don't Touch My Gems'' has a fairly balanced difficulty ramp. That is, until ninjas appear. With their first hit, they turn invisible, being unable to be targeted and making mid-air shots heading to them disappear. Then the ninja champions come out to play: More health (enough that the direct damage spell won't save you), twice as fast and still turning invisible, so by the time they become targetable again, they're often inside your base and [[LuckbasedMission you can only hope that your towers will activate the chance to cause fear]]. It's not uncommon for the last boss of the wave to be killed in seconds, but the entire level leading up to that to be laid out solely to deal with the ninja waves.

* The Imperial campaign of the original ''Red Alert 3'' is an even worse example. Some of the Imperial levels are so easy, they might as well be playable cutscenes (most prominently, both levels with the [[HumongousMecha Shogun Executioner]], as well as "Assault on the Black Tortoise", where you first wail on helpless enemy units that yield lots of exp for your elite navy, who then later come to help you finish the mission with little effort), while others are ridiculously difficult ("Graveyard of a foolish fleet" pits you against the might of the Allied air force and navy, all while your own naval and air force options are still developing and incomplete, "Rage of the Black Tortoise" expects you to take on several Allied bases while being seriously stymied for cash, and "Barbarians at the Bay" is a timed mission where you are forced to fight both the Allies and the Soviets, who will both throw ''everything'' they have at you). The final level is very much a middle-of-the-road mission in terms of difficulty, being nowhere near as difficult as the Allied finale, but being slightly more difficult than the Soviet one.

** In ''Throne of Bhaal'', the Five are a bit of this. The initial Illaseera is quite easy unless you are unprepared to her ranged shots. The subsequent Yaga-Shura is more difficult, mostly because of those nasty fire giants in his lair. Then you can choose the order between Sendai and Abazigal. Sendai is surprisingly easy both in dealing with her minions and in the final fight, but with a fearsome demilich in between; she is fought in stages of which all are a cakewalk unless again you are unprepared, except the mage one with that annoying time stop. Abazigal has a NintendoHard starting boss that is ThatOneBoss, an easy middle sequence, and a moderate-to-difficult final boss that for GameplayAndStorySegregation feels underwhelming compared to the starting one. Balthazar is very difficult until the boss, [[MyRulesAreNotYourRules who cheeses power his clas should not have]], is left alone without his elite mooks, then he quickly goes down.

* ''VideoGame/{{Lemmings}}'' is all over the place, simply because when you know the solution to a level, it's hard to predict how difficult others will find it to discover. A perfect example is "Flow Control" from ''Oh No More Lemmings'', midway through the last and supposedly hardest difficulty rating on the game. Depending on whom you ask, it's either worthy of that position or should have been in Tame. Likewise, late Taxing level "Take a running jump..." is ridiculously easy to solve (saving 100%) once one sees [[spoiler:that the level design is a RedHerring; one can simply ignore the tiny gap which is supposed to be plugged, and just build a landing ramp under the ledge]].

** So much of the game's difficulty comes from scattered [[TheWarSequence War Sequences]] and other [[ClassicVideoGameScrewYous game design death traps]] that the series might as well be the trope codifier for "That One Part of That One Level".

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioMaker''[='=]s 100 Mario Challenge in Expert mode is SturgeonsLaw in full effect, due to the game's reliance on user-generated content. You frequently run into courses filled with FakeDifficulty, tight reaction times, haphazard enemy placement, etc. You can skip these courses, but you need to actually clear a course in order to truly progress. Fortunately for those striving for HundredPercentCompletion, the majority of the 30 Mystery Mushroom costumes randomly rewarded for beating this mode can be alternatively unlocked through Toys/{{amiibo}}[[labelnote:specifics]]Bowser, [[ChromeChampion Mario (Silver), Mario (Gold)]], [[VideoGame/YoshisWoollyWorld Mega Yarn Yoshi]], [[Franchise/{{Kirby}} King Dedede]], [[VideoGame/{{Metroid}} Zero Suit Samus]], [[VideoGame/FireEmblemAwakening Lucina, Robin]], [[Franchise/{{Pokemon}} Lucario, Greninja]], [[VideoGame/{{Pikmin}} Captain Olimar]], [[Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda Zelda]], [[VideoGame/{{MOTHER3}} Lucas]], [[Franchise/{{Splatoon}} Inkling Boy, Inkling Girl]], [[VideoGame/AnimalCrossing Tom Nook, Rover, Kapp'n, Isabelle (Winter Outfit), Reese, Lottie]], [[UsefulNotes/GameAndWatch Mr. Game & Watch]], VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog, VideoGame/PacMan, [[VideoGame/PunchOut Little Mac]], [[VideoGame/StarFox Fox McCloud, and Falco Lombardi]][[/labelnote]], so at best you need three mandatory playthoughs to get the [[VideoGame/MarioBros Sidestepper, Shellcreeper, and Mario]] costumes.

* ''VideoGame/CannonFodder'' is an example of this once you get past the first DifficultySpike in Mission Eight. After this the average difficulty stays more or less the same until the end of the game, but with occasional shockingly hard phases dropped in at random.

* ''VideoGame/TheLionKing'' intentionally invoked this trope, alternating difficult levels with easy levels to give the player a [[BreatherLevel breather.]] However, there's an extreme DifficultySpike in the second level, intentionally inserted into the game to prevent people from beating the game while renting it.

* ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}''. Roughly the first 3rd of the game's levels are more or less just tutorials meant to teach you various game mechanics. Then, once you reach the abandoned insane asylum, you're suddenly thrust into a [[DifficultySpike considerably more difficult group of levels]] filled with tougher enemies, more death traps, and [[{{Bizarrchitecture}} really confusing level designs]]. Then, as a final level, there's the [[NintendoHard Meat Circus]], which is the hardest level in the game. Justified narratively in that the tutorial levels are within the minds of camp councilors, who A: are (generally) sane and B:are deliberately inviting you into their minds. Starting with [[spoiler:Linda, the giant lungfish]], not only are the minds you enter not fully sane, but you are also an unwanted intruder.

* ''VideoGame/UFOAftershock'' borders on this trope and multiple [[DifficultySpike difficulty spikes]]. First mutant mission is a cakewalk, but as soon as on third mission you can encounter very tough shotgun-wielding humanoid mutants (by that time you have only Alien laser weapons, which have pathetic range and damage) and fast sniper-ranged star like mutants, both of them can kill any of your unskilled soldiers with [[OneHitKill single critical hit]]. After you acquire shotguns for yourself it gets a bit easier. Another spike comes when Cultists come into play. On first mission against them you have to catch "real" cultists off guard on close range with your whole squad to bring them down without losses, mid range engagement is just a suicide. Second cultist mission is back to just difficult, because of captured equipment (especially weapon mods). When you get sniper rifles, scopes and trained Snipers, game goes from whatever difficulty it was to easy again. Then the Wargot show up, with their MechaMooks, powerful energy and kinetic weapons, and a love for incendiary explosives; all of which laugh at your armour at that point... on top of very good resistance to all non-armour piercing munitions. Fortunately that's offset by their humanoid nature (allowing snipers to make called shots). Later, the Starghost enemies raise difficulty again because they are either highly resistant (more resistant armour than anything before) nonhumanoid (preventing called shots) robots or actual ghosts (called Psionic projections) immune to your standard issue [[ImprobableAimingSkills fully modded]] AP loaded [=XM8=], [=MSG90=] and [[GunsAkimbo dual]] [[MoreDakka MP5]] forcing at least one of your (now [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower Super]])Soldiers to waste backpack space to carry an [[SniperRifle Ultra]][[SonicStunner SonicGun]] or other energy weaponry.

** The first ''VideoGame/PokemonMysteryDungeon'' games begin quite easy, then you face the three legendary birds when you aren't even Lv. 20. Afterwards, it becomes absurdly easy until you finish the story. Then you meet a DifficultySpike in the next three dungeons (first one with much tougher enemies, the second goes heavy on traps and the third has Pokémon that seem random). Then the difficulty plummets down for a while until you get to the ultimate dungeons. Note that this is all assuming your starters aren't [[ElementalRockPaperScissors Grass types]].

* ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'' can be like this, thanks to its very complicated battle system. A hard boss battle might force you to learn how to use a gameplay mechanic you had been ignoring beforehand, and suddenly the rest of the game becomes easy until you run into another DifficultySpike. Repeat until you get to the post-storyline content, which requires jumping back and forth between a bunch of {{Bonus Boss}}es while constantly switching your difficulty setting and HP around.

* In the [[IdleGame Idle]] DatingSim ''VideoGame/CrushCrush'', the girls are generally unlocked in order of increasing difficulty with Cassie (the first girl you unlock) as the easiest and Karma and Sutra (the last girls you unlock at this time of typing) as the hardest to get up to Lover status. However, several girls' relationship levels are surprisingly easy or difficult to complete compared to others': Ayano's earliest relationship levels are fairly straightforward but her post-Friendzoned requirements hit a huge DifficultySpike and her Lover requirements are obscenely high, and Eva's requirements are significantly easier to complete than Luna's far more expensive ones in spite of her being unlocked after Luna.

Compare DifficultySpike or ThatOneLevel, when a single level is much harder than its preceding levels, and BreatherLevel which is its inverse. Also see EarlyBirdBoss, which can cause this in the early parts of {{RPG}}s and games with RPG elements.

* In ''VideoGame/MortalKombatII'', Jade is a secret boss, with the [[SNKBoss cheap AI]] that you might expect from a boss. In ''[=MK3=]'', Jade is a selectable character, but the programmers never fixed her AI. Considering that it is almost entirely random when, or even if, you fight Jade in single player mode, she's a single-handed example of this trope.