History Main / SelfImposedChallenge

* ''SuperMarioBros'' games can get harder by avoiding power-ups. Avoiding everything but mushrooms is good; avoiding those as well is a NoDamageRun.

*** Or even worse, try playing it without getting ANY non-mandatory stage points. {{Raocow}} has completed [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKR9M3kCauI&feature=channel_video_title such a run]].

* ''RollingThunder'' has been completed [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SEAHjYuEo4 without the machine gun]].
* The flexible sequence of ''LaMulana'' lends itself well to many self-imposed challenges, which range from the easy (no [=Scalesphere/Ice Cape=]? Pfff) to the murderous (''No Life Jewels?!'').

** [[DevilMayCry4 DMC4]] has [[HarderThanHard Hell and Hell mode]]. [[OneHitPointWonder You die in one single hit.]]

** DMC4 has [[HarderThanHard Hell and Hell mode]]. [[OneHitPointWonder You die in one single hit.]]

** Another secret modifier called Loudness (itself a reference to The Dirty Of Loudness, famous for its [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ZVp6Xj5M7Bo#t=125s all-button mash sections]]) is less a Self-Imposed Challenge than it is something that's fun to screw around with. It can add surprising flavor to an otherwise bland chart when set to 10 to 30%. [[UpToEleven Siccing this at 100% on Diavolo [A] yields]] [[OverNineThousand 9880 notes]].

** Another secret modifier called Loudness (itself a reference to The Dirty Of Loudness, famous for its all-button mash sections) is less a Self-Imposed Challenge than it is something that's fun to screw around with. It can add surprising flavor to an otherwise bland chart when set to 10 to 30%. [[UpToEleven Siccing this at 100% on Diavolo [A] yields]] [[OverNineThousand 9880 notes]].

** Another secret modifier called Loudness (itself a reference to The Dirty Of Loudness, famous for its all-button mash sections) is less a Self-Imposed Challenge than it is something that's fun to screw around with. It can add surprising flavor to an otherwise bland chart when set to 10%. [[UpToEleven Siccing this on Diavolo [A] yields]] [[OverNineThousand 9880 notes]].

*** Way of the Surprising Fist: You become a BareFistedMonk. You can learn impressive skills, but you have a vow of poverty which slashes how much Meat you earn and cuts off non-combat Meat gains.

*** Avatar of Boris: You become a special class with its own skill tree. Mighty Boris can feast all day long and is aided by the versatile Clancy, but he CantHoldHisLiquor and will not even contemplate using any weapon but Trusty.
*** Bugbear Invasion: Bugbears invade the kingdom, radically shaking up the quest structure.
*** Zombie Slayer: You become a special class with its own skill tree. The name's misleading, though - ''you'' are a zombie. All you can eat [[BrainFood is brains]], booze has a bad effect on your system, and you can summon hordes of the undead to aid you (while at the same time being limited to "undead" familiars such as the Hovering Sombrero or the Spooky Pirate Skeleton).

*** BIG!: You start the game at Level 15 (in a game where you're encouraged to fight the FinalBoss at level ''13''). However, the enemies TookALevelInBadass, too...

** And if Natural Magic games aren't hard enough, you can attempt the No Equipment Natural Magic Game(NENMG). No Espers, armor, weapons, or relics can be used at any point during the game, so your characters' ability to deal damage comes ONLY from their natural abilities(Blitz, Rage, etc.). Simply grinding to level 99 is forbidden, and every optional quest must also be beaten, except for the Magi Master.

** [[VideoGame/SuperSmashBros Initial Equipment, No Accessories, No Escaping, No Physical Attacks, No Limit Breaks, Command Materia Only.]]
** [[{{Unwinnable}} No Physical Attacks, No Magic, No Escaping, No Anything.]]

** This troper's personal favourite is called the DCHLB challenge, or Dual-Character Half-License Board. One character takes the bottom half of the board, meaning they can wear any armor and use any weapon, but they can only use their starting abilities, while the other takes the top half and has access to all the Magick, Technicks, Augments and Accessories, while staying in their original equipment. Decoy is pretty much your best friend, here.

* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' players can try the Mono-Type, [[SoloCharacterRun One-Poke]], [[NotAllowedToGrowUp No Evolutions]], {{Speedrun}}s, or Scramble challenges. Scramble entails other players picking your team for you; it's possible to end up with a team of Magikarp and Wurmple, for example. And you can't evolve them. Which sucks for you.
** One of the more common & less intense self-imposed challenges is not using [[OlympusMons legendary or pseudo-legendary]] Pokemon.

** And the "[[{{Permadeath}} No-Whiteout]]" challenge. If all of your pokemon in the party faint, start a new save file. Getting that pokedex completion can really suck.

** There's a related version called the [[http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Nuzlocke_Challenge "Nuzlocke Challenge"]], named after the comic of the challenge's creator. The challenge is simple: All [[NonLethalKO faintings]] are [[FinalDeath permanent]] (either via releasing, just keeping them in a box permanently, or transferring to a later gen game if you really want to), and you're only allowed to catch the first Pokemon you see on any given route or cave. Also, you need to give all the Pokemon you catch nicknames. Completing the challenge? [[CaptainObvious Less simple]].

** Also the Poke-Ball only challenge, where you ''only'' [[HarderthanHard use Poke-Balls to capture every Pokemon on the pokedex]] [[ThisIsGonnaSuck including the Legendary Pokemon.]] The ''only'' exceptions for this are in places like the Safari Zone which ''forces'' you to use a Safari Ball. Only region specific Pokemon can be traded, and all traded Pokemon need to have been caught in only Poke-Balls as well.

** One monotype challenge is now apparently known as the 'Youngster Joey' challenge. Get through the Elite Four with only a Rattata.

--> You must have a cheating device with a "catch Trainer Pokémon" cheat available at all times.

** And now, I'd like to introduce The [[VideoGame/PokemonBlackandWhite N Challenge]]

--> Normal types are free game unless they have a secondary typin. (I.E. Everyone can have a Ratata, but only Air tribes can have a Pidgey, Water Tribes can have a Bibarel, etc.)

** There's "One Gun" challenge (and achievement) in the first game, requiring to beat game using only Plasma Cutter. Catch? It's actually prety viable startegy, especially on higher difficulties

* Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link includes various challenges involving keeping one (or even two) of your stats (Attack, Magic, Life) at Level 1 for the entire game. Fighting Thunderbird with Level 1 Attack and Level 1 Magic means you can only use Thunder to make him vulnerable, and it takes 96 sword slashes to take him down!

* ''VideoGame/GoldenEye1997'' and its SpiritualSuccessor ''PerfectDark'' feature unlockable difficulty settings (called "007" and "Perfect Dark" respectively) that allow the player to alter the challenge by fine-tuning certain enemy properties: their health, accuracy, damage and reaction times. Level runs done with minimum enemy health and all other settings on maximum (meaning both player and perfectly-accurate guards will die in a single hit) are known as "Licence to Kill" (LTK) settings. Runs with ''everything'' set to maximum, so that guards have ten times more health than normal, are known as "Dark LTK" runs. In ''VideoGame/GoldenEye1997'' this is stupidly hard since a dead foe doesn't drop enough ammo to kill the next one; in ''Perfect Dark'' it's ''marginally'' more manageable thanks to the game's quirk that [[BoomHeadshot headshots on unshielded NPCs are always instant kills]].

*** Ultimate Doom E4M1 ("Hell Beneath") UV-Max from pistol start without taking damage

** If you're really brave, try beating ''Mega Man X4'' as Zero using ''only'' the Z-Buster shot from his arm, excluding bosses that can't be hurt by it [[spoiler: [[OhCrap like Sigma's first form where he's dressed like the Grim Reaper for example.]]]]
*** Unless you're referring to Raijingeki (the special technique gained from Web Spider), this is technically impossible as Zero didn't (re)gain the Z-Buster in the 32-bit titles until ''X5'' (only to lose it again after ''X6'').

* ''{{Metroid}}'' players seem to love self-imposed challenges. ''Super Metroid'' in particular seems to attract them besides the traditional {{Speedrun}}s, [[MinimalistRun low-percentage runs]] and [[HundredPercentCompletion 100% runs]], there's also runs where you don't collect some items usually required to progress, morphball-runs (only get out of morphball when it's absolutely required), and ofcourse the NBMB-run (no bosses/minibosses), where you see how high percentage of items you can get without killing any bosses ([[http://tasvideos.org/1139M.html it's possible]] by exploiting sequence-breaking bugs in the game). Here are a few popular, obscenely hard challenges:

** ''SuperMetroid'', 11% completion. You need glitches to reach Mother Brain. And man, good luck with Ridley.

** ''Zero Mission'' is the first (and to date, only) Metroid game that was designed with self-imposed challenges in mind. 15% item completion and a finish time of under 2 hours is required for the best ending, but the item completion can go as low as 9% (10% on hard), and the time to well under an hour.

** As an example of "Borderline impossible", let's player [[http://www.youtube.com/user/HideofBeast HideofBeast]] has done a minimalist, no damage speed-run of Mega Man X4-6 on Extreme mode. The X6 run in particular looks so painful to pull off that just watching it could be considered a masochistic activity.
** ''Powered Up'', the [[VideoGameRemake remake]] of the first game, acknowledged the "arm cannon only" variant; defeating a Robot Master with just your arm cannon will unlock them as a playable character.
** Youtube user [[http://www.youtube.com/user/RoahmMythril RoahmMythril]] has actually finished every Robot Master stage in the main Mega Man series, ''Mega Man & Bass'', ''Mega Man Powered Up'' and the Gameboy games without taking damage, using only the uncharged arm cannon as far as possible.

** ''VideoGame/MegaMan 9'' and ''10'' both have an item called "The Book of Hairstyles" that can be bought for the ever-so-low price of 20 screws. This item removes Mega Man's helmet, revealing his hair. But wait. Without his helmet, Mega Man takes MORE damage, and if he loses even ONE life, his helmet comes back, thus requiring the item to be bought...AGAIN. If you're looking to obtain the achievement for beating all 8 bosses without your helmet, expect [[strike:your screw expenses to overflow]] [[IncrediblyLamePun to be screwed over.]]

** Thanks to people who spent their time figuring this out, there's a not-so-obvious Mega Man X challenge: Beat the entire game without any upgrades from the get go. Unfortunately, since it's not possible to defeat Chill Penguin without running into the Boots upgrade (or it is, this editor hasn't figured that out), it's technically not from the get go. The password you need is: 4764 8488 7716. To make this even more fun, try without using boss weapons.
** If you're really brave, try beating Mega Man X4 as Zero using ''only'' the Z-Buster shot from his arm, excluding bosses that can't be hurt by it [[spoiler: [[OhCrap like Sigma's first form where he's dressed like the Grim Reaper for example.]]]]
* Try beating a ''SonicTheHedgehog'' game without touching ''a single ring'' while doing a SpeedRun. This takes a NoDamageRun's difficulty UpToEleven.
** A ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2'' mod called Sonic 2XL plays with the no ring challenge by making the rings themselves deadly to Sonic. The rings become onion rings and collecting them makes Sonic gain weight. Get too many rings and Sonic gets fatter and more sluggish and should he get way too many, he becomes immobile from his fat and then dies from a heart attack. Even Super Sonic is not immune to becoming fat! And if you have [[ArtificialStupidity Tails]] as a partner, the rings he collects transfer to ''you''.

* In most of the Franchise/{{Halo}} franchise, you have the option to turn on various "skulls" for the campaign mode (in some games you have to find them before you can use them, in some games not) which effect the gameplay in various ways. There's one that causes your shields to recharge only upon meleeing an enemy, one that causes every enemy's health to double, one that removes your entire first-person HUD ''and arms,'' leaving you with ''no way to tell what gun you're currently using'' unless you fire it, or tediously look at its shape with your own shadow, one that causes you to restart the whole level if you die on solo or revert to the last checkpoint if ANY player dies on co-op, and those just name a few. Some skulls are actually helpful (those of which that only appear in Videogame/{{Halo 2}} and Combat Evolved Anniversary), but in most cases, it greatly increases the game's difficulty in many unique ways.
** Community members have also started doing the LASO ("Legendary, All Skulls On") challenge, which is to complete any level on the hardest difficulty with every skull on. If you ever try it, it's a nightmare, to say the least.

* Enter the DayNine [[{{Starcraft 2}} Daily]], where we learn to be a better gamer. Except on monday where we just dick around. Indeed, on Funday Monday, the host, DayNine, imposes a self-imposed challenge on your gameplay such as, "You must only attack on creep", "You must make a planetary fortress at your opponents natural", or "Make all your pylons outside your base." The best and funniest entries are casted by the host on a live stream.

* In ''ThePrincessBride'', the Man in Black and Inigo both took the self-imposed challenge to kill their opponent (each other) only with their [[IAmNotLeftHanded non-dominant left hands.]]